


A Room of Our Own

by hayjolras



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-10 01:36:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 48,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hayjolras/pseuds/hayjolras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” - Victor Hugo</p><p>With college comes the promise of new people, new friends, new experiences, a fresh start. Éponine Thénardier and Cosette Fauchelevent are somehow paired up as roommates, each girl hoping to start a new chapter in her life. There's friendships to be made, love to fall into, unrequited loves to complain about -- except, no one ever suspects that they'll fall for their own roommate, right?</p><p>Rated M for later chapters</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Éponine put down the last of her boxes at her side of the room, furthest to the door, closest to the window, and stared serenely around at her little dorm. It wasn’t much — to others, it would have looked like a jail cell — gray walls, two small dressers, two tiny closets, and two cramped desks — two steps into the room and you were already near the first bed — but Éponine was in love with it. To her, it was her ticket out, and, after all, she had seen much worse.

She decided to unpack the basics first — make her bed, organize her text books, hang her clothes up — and then go about her decorations. Those weren’t much, anyway — just pictures of her and her younger sister and brother that she planned to hang up. She’d deemed no one else in her life important enough to remember while away at school. There were also song lyrics her younger sister has collaged together for her, to try to make it feel, in her words, “more homey.” Éponine had laughed at the words, wondering on earth how her sister knew what “home” felt like, but hadn’t said anything to her.

Éponine sighed and glanced around again. She _did_ miss Gavroche and Azelma, to be honest, but she knew that this was, at the end of the day, the best decision for her. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life with her parents, working for them, or covering for them, or...well, everything else. She _wouldn’t_. She refused, point blank.

And just think, she figured decidedly as she began to make her bed, this way, she would be able to get an education. A job. A legitimate career. Éponine was smart, she knew, and she figured if she expanded upon her knowledge, cultivated it and fed it, she could do so much. Enough to get Azelma and Gavroche out of her parent’s grasp, as well.

That’s what she had to tell herself to keep from crying, at least.

She started to make her bed, which was small, and, from what she could tell, moderately comfortable. At least, it was more comfortable than the mattresses as home, though that wasn’t saying much.

But it was, as stated before, her ticket out, and as much as she criticized and scrutinized, she was a very thankful girl. Working these past few years in school, to have it paid off for a shot of getting out of the unfortunate life she had grown in to -- a tight room and bumpy mattress was worth it. She was not, in any capacity, a thankless girl. Perhaps at one time, she was, but things were different now. Her life was different. She was different.

She was, overall, grateful.

Just as she was finished tucking in the corners of her sheets, she heard a small knock on the door, and heard a serious voice.

“Can I come in?”

Eponine paused to admire her work on her small mattress, saying to whoever was at the entryway, “The door’s open, so,” and then she turned to see a young man holding a blue clipboard at the doorway.

He was small in build, and short  — even with her boots off, Éponine would’ve had two inches or so on him, and she wasn't all that tall to begin with. He was, decidedly  a beautiful man, with a look upon his face that said he was normally intimidating, but was trying to conceal it beneath a grin. Éponine knew better, though, because the corners of his mouth were not completely upturned, like his happiness wasn’t all there yet. He had piercing blue eyes and medium length wavy blonde hair that looked ruffled, as though it hadn’t been brushed for a while. He possessed the air of someone who could move mountains and convince even the most stubborn of people to come over to his side, to see things from his point of view. He looked no older than 17 or so. Éponine, how ever, knew he couldn’t be that young; though, if she looked at him quickly, she could swear that he might be one of her sister’s girl friends, with that slight stature, pale skin, and red lips.

The two students looked at each other for a moment, sizing each other up. To Éponine, the man seemed someone who was normally respected and feared, almost, she thought, like an angel. He donned a red blazer that was worn at the elbows. His v-neck black t-shirt that he wore underneath exposed his sharp white collarbones. On his feet were shoes that looked so worn out that Éponine wouldn’t have been surprised if the young man didn’t have to tape them together every few days. Under his eyes were small purple circles, as if he hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in a while. If he hadn’t, it didn’t show in his energy. Éponine respected that.

Éponine, to the young man, appeared to be a tough girl to crack, a trouble maker, in leather jacket and black heeled boots. To the man, first impressions were of upmost importance -- as they were to Éponine -- but he would not forget the first image of the girl he saw -- hand on her hip, head cocked to the side, piecered eyebrow raised, all while chomping away on gum, a look of mixed amusement and curiosity on her face.

He spoke first.

“I’m Enjolras,” the young man apparently named Enjolras said to Éponine. “I’m the Resident Advisor for Curie this year — I am,” he added, with a bit of a puff, like he was extremely excited to tell someone about it, “also the new student government president on campus, so if you have any concerns — at all, about dorm life, your roommate, getting involved —”

“Getting involved.” Éponine had heard that word a lot over the past few months.

” — I’m the man to come to for that. Speaking of roommates — you haven’t met yours, have you? I think she e-mailed me a few -- ”

Éponine shrugged. She wasn’t expecting him to let her talk or have him question her. “Have I met her? No. But I have her name — Cosette —”

“Fauchelevent?” Enjolras finished, reading off a list on his clipboard. “Yes. That’s her. Let her know that there’s a floor meeting tonight at 8:30. It’s in the lounge — you walked by it when you got off the elevator. It’s mandatory, so be there.”

Éponine didn’t nod or reply right away. Instead, she decided to test the waters — see how far she could push her knew RA.

“What happens if we don’t go?” she asked innocently, but Enjolras was able to catch something in her tone — maybe it was too innocent for his taste, not enough of simple curiosity in her voice that made him suspicious.

He crossed his arms and observed the girl standing across from him. “Just be there, okay?”

Éponine rolled her eyes. It seemed to her like she couldn’t push her RA very far at all.

Pity.

“I’d love to stay and chat,” Enjolras continued, in a tone that made it very clear he would _not_ love to stay and chat, looking back down at his papers, a slight frown on his face. “But I have other business to attend to.”

Éponine wondered vaguely if his frown was forever etched upon his face.

“Perfect,” she said, turning her attention back to her boxes and carefully taking out a few candles (also given to her by her sister), “because it’s almost time for me to start my daily Santanic sacrifices.”

Enjolras stared at her for a very long moment, his fierce blue eyes meeting her warm brown ones. Éponine matched his gaze with equal intensity, trying to see if she could read his face to see if she’d shaken him. Then he shuddered, as if trying to unsee a disturbing image, and exited the room in one swift and dramatic motion.

Éponine bit her lips, keeping back a laugh.

College was already much better than she _ever_ could have imagined.

 

*     *     *

Cosette sat in the car with her forehead pressed lightly against the passenger side window, catching glimpses of her father’s eyes wavering over towards her every few minutes or so in its reflection.

She knew he would miss her, and she knew how it hard it had been for him to accept that she was going to school so far away. They had always been close -- from the time he adopted her up until now, he had loved her dearly, and she, him.

But now was the time that she had to leave. Not, of course, go and never speak to her father ever again -- that was never on the table for Cosette -- but she needed this. She needed the freedom of being away from her father, of making her own decisions and being independent. She loved her father, but she had always known that he was a bit overprotective, afraid that she was breakable.

Cosette was not breakable, though. She had always known that, deep down, whatever life had thrown at her, she was usually able to manage.

She had promised to call every day, though, for her father’s sake, and keep him updated on her college life and the goings-on at school. She didn’t mind, though, she decided as her father pulled onto the campus. Cosette wanted her father in her life as long as possible.

Cosette had not met her roommate yet, or so much as talked to her. Cosette, for her part, had tried to reach out to the girl named Éponine, but hadn’t been able to reach her. Perhaps Éponine had done the same thing, had searched for something about Cosette -- a phone number, a home address -- but her search may have been just as fruitless as Cosette was.

As she got out of the car, she tied her blonde hair up in a loose bun. Feeling the warm end-of-summer sun of the back of her neck, she went to go help her father, who was taking her suitcases out of the car.

“Father, let me help,” Cosette said, reaching for one of the heaver cases, but her father stopped her, with a quick, “Cosette, it’s fine. I can do it.”

She bit her lip and looked down at her father. Though he was strong, Cosette knew he was also aging a bit -- he was always much older than the fathers of the other girls she had gone to school with.

She took a lighter case silently, though, without arguing. These were there last few moments together for a while, she knew. There was no sense in bickering now. Cosette was always a big believer of last moments being sweet, as opposed to bitter or unkind.

"What's the dorm's name again?" her father asked as they exited the parking lot and walked towards campus.

"Curie, I think," Cosette responded, trying to hold the suitcase she was carrying while taking a piece of paper with her dorm information on it to read it. "Yeah, it's Curie," she confirmed when she managed to open it and examine it.

What should have taken them several trips only took them one trip to Cosette’s dorm -- Cosette never overestimated her father’s strength -- and they silently walked through the doors of the dorm, passing noisy students and their own parents, to the elevator.

“It’s floor three,” Cosette told her father, who hit the button, and they ascended to the third floor, where Éponine was waiting.

 

 *     *     *

Éponine was thoroughly surprised at how long Cosette’s dad stayed. He was an old, but cheery fellow, with gray hair and a genuine smile, even when he saw a frowning Éponine for the first time.

“You are obviously Cosette’s roommate,” he had said happily when he entered the room and saw Eponine on her bed. “So glad to meet you. So glad, of course. Do you need help setting anything up? Computer? TV? Anything?”

Éponine examined him suspiciously. He did not scowl, or wince, or show any signs of passing judgement, the way most people did when they looked at Eponine. Of course, she figured, he probably passed it in his mind, but she was secretly thankful that he didn’t show the disapproval most people did.

What the girl didn’t know, though, was the man was not apt to pass any judgements on first glance. He had similarly taught his daughter, Cosette, that she would do well to always do the same.

So he stayed, and Éponine watched as he made Cosette laugh as he set up her computer, helped her make her bed and hang up her clothes, and started to get teary-eyed as Cosette’s side of the room started to get settled, for he knew that their time together was drawing to a close.

Cosette, at around mid-day, walked her father out back to the car, where they had a tearful good-bye. They walked silently to the parking lot, unsure of what to say to each other. Cosette feared that if she tried to speak and pretend that everything was normal, she'd burst into tears and beg her father to take her home with him.

When they reached the car, they stood in front of it for almost ten minutes, not daring to look at each other until Cosette found the courage to cut the cord and let her father leave.

“I’ll miss you, Papa,” she said as he pulled her into a tight hug.

“I’ll miss you too, Cosette,” he replied, patting her back. “I’d remind you to be good, but I know you will be.”

Cosette tightened her hug. “I love you, Papa.”

“I love you, too, Cosette,” he said.

Then he left, and Cosette watched him until the car was out of her sight, and stayed there for a few minutes, entranced at the reality -- she had not been without her father in years.

Still a bit shocked and bewildered, she turned, and went back to the dorms.

 

*     *     * 

Éponine didn’t look up upon her return, and Cosette wasn’t sure whether to take it as rudeness on Éponine’s part, or shyness.

Cosette sat on her bed and looked to her roommate’s side of their room. It was rather plain, compared to hers. Éponine’s sheets were a dark purple, and all that decorated her wall were pictures of a younger version of herself, a girl not much younger than her, and a young boy.

As a sort of juxtaposition, Cosette’s side of the room was like a work of art. Éponine had examined it closely with Cosette was saying good-bye to her father. Her sheets were light greens and blues, with pink flower wall hangings plastered about everywhere, with pictures of all different places throughout France adding to the walls.

She had also taken the liberty to go through Cosette’s closet -- not to _steal_ anything, of course, but just out of general curiosity. Everything Cosette owned also had that light, airy feeling to it -- pastels and skirts and flowered dresses, light brown boots and wedged heels -- Éponine could’ve sworn she saw knee socks in the drawers as she riffled through them, also finding, with a sigh, some makeup and  _flowered headbands_.

Whoever had done the roommate choosing, Éponine decided, as she looked in some of Cosette’s notebooks, had done a very poor job, indeed.

It was through this particular inspection that Éponine had come across a sort of sketchbook, hiding itself among Cosette’s neatly-labeled notebooks (“Calculus 1”, “English 101”, “Reflections of Women in Art”, and so on). Flipping through it, Eponine caught quick glimpses in sketches -- very good sketches, at that, of Cosette’s father, a room she supposed was Cosette’s bedroom at home, as well as places that were probably familiar to her and her town -- a garden, a small square, and a church.

Appraising her roommate’s side of the room for the second time, Eponine really hadn’t been very surprised at all that Cosette was an artist.

Now, sitting on her bed, Cosette decided to converse with her quiet roommate. She surveyed Éponine's side of the dorm, trying to find anything that would spark a topic in her mind. Her eyes immediately fell to the pictures on Éponine's wall, and she looked at them, the two girls and little boy, with who appeared to be younger Éponine in the center of most of them, her arms wrapped around the kids lovingly.

“Who are the boy and girl in your pictures?”

Éponine looked up, her dark brown, heavily eye-penciled eyes meeting Cosette’s light ones. “Um,” she replied, nearly bending over backwards to look at the wall, “my sister, Alezma, and my brother, Gavroche.” She didn’t ask anything in return, though, so Cosette went on.

“Your sister looks like you.”

“Yeah, we get that a lot. Or used to, before I came here, I guess.”

“I haven’t got any brothers or sisters. Just me and my dad.”

“Just as well,” the dark-haired girl dismissed, finally showing some signs of an interest in conversation. “They’re a right pain in the ass most of the time.”

Éponine had a cool air about her, to Cosette, one that seemed to let people know that she didn’t really care, and Cosette wondered if she should let her new roommate be left well enough alone.

Cosette, in Éponine's opinion, was friendly enough -- a little _nosy_ , perhaps, a little too cheerful looking for her taste -- perky was the word to describe her -- Éponine decided. But she wondered, vaguely, if Cosette knew that Éponine was the kind of person most people were put off by, even afraid of.

“What are you majoring in?” Cosette asked, determined to get to know the girl she'd been stuck with as a roommate. 

Hearing the resolve in Cosette's tone, Éponine decided that if Cosette _was_ afraid of her, she certainly did not show it. Éponine respected that. It wasn't every day that someone treated her as if she were worth something.

Éponine shrugged. “Dunno yet.” Then, figuring it polite, asked, “You?” She already had a vague idea, but wondered if Cosette would own up to her talent or keep it hidden.

Cosette smiled. “Art history, with a minor in drawing.”

“Are you any good?”

Cosette shied away from the question, trying to be as modest as possible. “I -- well, I like to draw --”

“Cut the bullshit, Cosette,” Éponine couldn’t help but say -- to be blunt was the way of Éponine, the way modesty was for Cosette -- “I didn’t ask that question so you could say you’re _bad_ at it.”

The blond girl stared at the bold girl set before her.

“Well,” she said, wondering how on earth Éponine knew her drawing skills (because Cosette had been taught to never consider the fact that her new roommate might go through her stuff when she wasn’t around), “I suppose I am pretty skilled, Éponine.”

There was a silence, where the girls took a look at each other when one wasn’t looking semi-suspiciously. Cosette, for some inexplicible reason, was reminded of a dog who sniffed the hand of a person they'd just met, deciding if the person in question were a friend or foe to the animal.

After two minutes of this sneaky examination on both their parts, Éponine startled Cosette by getting up suddenly, as it she had remembered something of great importance. 

“I’m going to the dinning hall to get something to eat.” 

And instead of inviting Cosette to go with her, Éponine simply said, “Don’t be so modest about yourself -- and there’s a dorm meeting thing at 8:30 tonight.”

When the door clicked shut, Cosette stared at it for several seconds, replaying the conversation in her head, trying to remember how Éponine had looked at her, her tone of voice, the way she answered questions in a sort of uninterested way, giving off the impression that she really didn't give much of a damn about anything.

_That_ was the girl Cosette would be living with for the next year, and yet, to her shock, she was oddly excited about it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Éponine has her first college experience -- lacking motivation to do what's obligated of her. When she's coerced into finding it -- thanks to a certain roommate -- she's actually kind of glad she did.

“If we don’t leave for the hall meeting now, we’ll probably be late,” Cosette  said to Éponine later that night, braiding her hair and looking at Eponine from across the room.

The dark haired girl was sitting cross-legged on her bed, reading a book. She’d come back from dinner in a much better mood, a bit more talkative, and seemed upset when Cosette herself went to get something to eat. Though she didn’t say so to Cosette, Éponine regretted not inviting her to come down to dinner with her. She’d even waited outside the door for a few minutes after she left, contemplating going back in to ask Cosette to tag along. But she just couldn’t do it, so she trudged down the stairs as opposed to taking the elevator, and found her way to the dining hall, which, luckily for her, wasn’t too far away from her dorms.

Éponine had sat, eating the crappy food she’d be eating for the next two semesters at the very least, trying to remind herself that she was going to be living with Cosette for a while -- she may as well be nice. This place wasn’t her hometown, and no one from there, save for herself, was here. She had to be...well...nicer. She could be less on guard here -- wasn’t that one of the reasons why she’d come here, after all?

Now, sitting on her bed, Éponine replied, without looking up, “Who said I was _going_ to the meeting?”

Cosette finished braiding her hair and pushed a flowered headband back on her head. “I thought you said it was mandatory?”

“Please,” Éponine said, flipping a page, still not looking up. “Is he gonna kick me out of the dorm and leave me homeless?”

Cosette put her hands on her hips and turned to face Éponine. “From what you told me, he seems like the kind of guy you don’t want to get on the wrong side of, you know?” she said to her roommate, in an almost pleading tone. “Come on, you _have_ to come.”

“Cosette,” Éponine said, finally looking up to meet Cosette’s gaze, “I’m assuming you can count.”

There was a beat.

“Yes?”

“Then you know there are two of us,” Éponine replied cooly.

“So?” Cosette wasn’t sure where this was going. For all she knew, Éponine was trying to make her look stupid.

“ _So_ ,” Éponine had continued, putting down her book and getting off her bed. “If _one_ of us goes, then at least one of us will know what’s going on and the rules and stuff. I’d say one half of two is perfectly alright, don’t you?”

Cosette crossed her arms and frowned at the girl standing across from her who was trying to weasel her way out of going.”Two is better than one, though, Éponine.”

Éponine rolled her eyes. She tried to ignore the way her name sounded on Cosette’s lips -- familiar, like they’d known each other for a much longer time than a few hours in a cramped dorm room at college. The familiarity, though sounding very Cosette-like (at least, from what Éponine could tell), unsettled her, though she couldn’t quite figure out why.

Cosette, however, didn’t seemed to mind. Instead of being put off by Éponine’s eye roll, she took a step closer to her roommate, committed to winning this argument. She wasn’t sure why she felt compelled to string Éponine along, when Éponine clearly did not want to be strung -- maybe she just didn’t want to go alone. Éponine, after all, had been the first person she met on campus. And could Éponine blame Cosette? Really? She’d already eaten dinner all by herself. That was bad enough. She didn’t want to show up to the meeting by herself.

So if Éponine wanted to give her a hard time, fine. That didn’t mean Cosette couldn’t be just as unyielding.

“ _You_ might be stubborn, Éponine,” Cosette continued slowly, choosing her words carefully, “but so am I. And _I_ say we should go.”

_Oh_ , Éponine thought, surprised by Cosette's response. She'd been expecting her to give in, throwing her hands up in response and put the discussion to an end. Only, she didn't, and Éponine couldn't help but try to see how unrelenting her roommate really was. She took one step closer to Cosette, her expression wicked as she said, "Make me."

There was a silence where both girls looked straight at each other, two huntresses observing their prey. Éponine was waiting for Cosette to respond, while Cosette was searching for the right words to say.

"Maybe I will."

Éponine found this funny, but she didn’t want to upset Cosette by laughing, because this was not the roommate she’d met hours ago, who was all sweet and kind and flower-y. Not at all. This girl was someone who was going to push right back if Éponine shoved. She found it amusing, but all the same, Éponine never backed down from a dare. 

Éponine bit her lip so hard that she thought she could taste blood. “Is that a challenge, Cosette?” She was smirking now, unable to hide the laughter in her tone or on her face.

_Ah_ , Cosette thought, observing her roommate’s facial expression attentively, _now I’ve hooked her_. 

One eyebrow was up, and she was biting her lid so hard, she’d drawn a bit of blood, yet Éponine was still smirking, as if goading Cosette to go along with whatever game she’d set up in her mind.

“Do you want it to be?” Cosette shot back, grinning slyly. “Is that what’s gonna get you to come?”

There was a short pause in which both girls eyed each other for what seemed to be the millionth time that day. Éponine was caught off-guard by the teasing nature of her “perky” roommate’s tone. She was on the verge of lying back down on her bed and refusing to get up, but she was also ready to make a break for the door to get to the lounge before Cosette did, just to tick her off. Cosette, on the other hand, could see the struggle in Éponine’s eyes -- stay or go? Cosette knew she’d won this small battle before Éponine even spoke.

“Fine, Cosette. I’ll grace you all with my presence,” Éponine said, lightly pushing past Cosette to get to their bedroom door.

 

 *     *     *

 

So maybe Éponine gave in a little too easily, but she had assumed Cosette was probably right. Plus, Enjolras already thought Éponine was a Satanist. If she didn’t go, she figured he’s probably think she was trying to summon Satan himself through a series of time consuming chants and magic spells. She could see him now, in her mind’s eye, giving his little speech or whatever to her peers, searching around the room and not seeing her dark head there. His eyes would grow a little wider as he imagine Éponine sacrificing a chicken or some sort of other small creature (she wasn’t sure if Satanists actually sacrificed chickens or living things, but she assumed that Enjolras assumed such notions).

If all that wasn’t bad enough, the guilt of leaving Cosette all by herself weighed on Éponine’s mind, and that was strange for her. She wasn’t the guilty type. She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and didn’t think too much about other people while she did it -- or after, for that matter. Once, a few years back, she was running a...an errand for her parents with one of her...friends...and her friend got into a bit of trouble, but she was far away enough to simply watch the scene unfold, so she shrugged and walked away from it. She’d turned her back, not wanting to be suspected or associated with what was going on. Her friend had gotten in huge trouble, and probably wouldn’t have, had Éponine stayed (or been looking out for the cops in the first place, like she was supposed to), and she knew that, and was told that repeatedly. She was hit over the head with that information. But she didn’t care, and she certainly didn’t feel guilty.

This time, however, she did feel a tiny bit bad. She also knew that Cosette was giving her a bit of a second chance, in a way. That wasn’t going to be something Éponine would pass up that easily.

So Éponine and Cosette departed from their room to the lounge, Éponine looking slightly grumpy at the prospect of having to see Enjolras again, and Cosette with a victorious smirk etched onto her face.

“This is for the best, you know,” Cosette said smugly as they turned the corner to the lounge, linking her arm’s with her roommate’s.

Éponine didn’t bother to shake her off, like she normally would’ve, but instead, agreed loftily, “You’re right. Enjolras is already convinced I’m a Satan worshipper, anyway.”

_“What!?”_

“I’ll tell you later -- keep walking, blondie -- you’re gonna make us late.”

***

So, they were there, prompt, despite the time it took Cosette to lure Éponine out of their room.

The girls shared a love seat, Cosette sitting normally, and Éponine lying down, her legs draped over the arm rest of the couch, kicking her legs back and forth like a school child in a seat too big for her.

Slowly, more kids began to file in, and Cosette tried to take them all in. All first years, all freshmen, young and eager eyed and jittering with nerves.  

Here, she felt equal, like everyone was on the same playing field for once. Everyone was new. Everyone, except, of course, Enjolras, who she had yet to meet.

Just when she started to wonder what the mysterious RA looked like, a pair of hands clapped for silence.

“Freshmen!” came a loud, comical voice from behind them. The students turned and strained their necks to look (except Éponine, who barely lifted herself up to see where the voice was coming from). “Freshmen, freshmen, freshmen.”

Cosette found the source of the voice, and watched the man with her eyes and he made his way to the front, a good-natured grin on his face. He was short and rather stocky, with a mess of tight, dark curls on his head, some of which were concealed by a navy blue beanie. His clothes were baggy and paint-marked, like they’d been used for a smock at some point in time. He seemed friendly enough to Cosette, and she wondered what it was that Éponine found in him that rubbed her the wrong way. Maybe it was the way he walked. His pace was slow, a little shaky, even, like...

“Freshmen!” he said it again, like he hadn’t said it three times before. “Fellow students. The future of France. You come here with wide eyes and hope in your hearts, and you are entrusted to me.”

The man suddenly became extremely sober-looking. Being able to see him properly, Cosette noted that, along with the unbalanced walking, had a glazed over look in his eyes and dark circles around his lids, clear signs that he’d been drinking too much. He was holding a blue clipboard, and taping it furiously with the pen he was holding, unable to keep his hands still.

_This is the man who is was supposed to be watching over us?_ Cosette wondered frantically, looking hastily around to see the nervous faces of her fellow first years. She usually tried not to judge others, but she couldn’t understand how a kid who reeked of booze could ever be trusted to watch after a group of kids new to the whole “college experience”.  

She looked over at Éponine, horrified, but Éponine, simply had her pierced eyebrow -- the right one -- raised, not in worry or terror, but confusion. Then a slow smile crept upon her lips, barely exposing her teeth.

Cosette sighed. Of course her roommate would find this _funny_.

“I am Enjolras,” the dark haired man said seriously. “And I am here to do one thing and one thing only.”

There was a expectant pause, where the kids glanced around at each other, shifting in their seats, or crossing and uncrossing their legs in nervous anticipation.

“To destroy all your fun.”

There was another silence, where he let that sink in. The man, who Cosette thought to be Enjolras, but we -- of course, know better -- let his eyes wander around the room of uncomfortable students who were not sure if he was being serious or not.

“I am your RA, and I am also president of student government,” he went on, only now he was pacing back and forth. “I was also on the football team my sophomore year before I wised up, and now frequently spend my time terrorizing fellow students and planning my marriage to my beloved Patria. I have not smiled in fifteen years due to an unfortunate incident concerning a stick and my ass. I also enjoy kicking puppies and stealing candy from small children.”

Now no one was sure whether to take him seriously, except Éponine, who let out a quick bark of laughter.

In one fluid motion, every single head snapped in Éponine’s direction, apalled at her clear disrespect for the guy in charge. She appeared not to notice, her eyes still locked on the man in front of the room.

The Enjolras impostor turned to Éponine and began shaking his pen at her in such a serious manner that it was almost comical. “Is this a joke to you, young lady?” he said sternly, frowning. “Is Patria just a simple game to you? I will have you know that Patria and mine’s love is real. I met her on --” 

The man was cut off my a very brief, quiet, “a-hem” from the back of the room.

Everyone turned again to see who we know to be the real Enjolras. The real Enjolras had his arms crossed and was looking at the man in front of the room with a look of disdain. 

Éponine, of course, had already seen Enjolras once that day. Cosette, on the other hand, was seeing him for the first time, and she decided that Enjolras was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. His face looked as if the angels themselves had carved him out of marble -- his jaw and cheekbones were sharp, but delicate, and his light eyebrows arched perfectly beneath a strong forehead. His hair was blonde, like Cosette’s, but his fell to his shoulders in loose curls. He appeared to be an angel -- a comforting presence, but terrible to behold all at once.

“Did you like my impression?” was all the man said to Enjolras, who stride to the front of the room. Like Éponine minutes prior, he never took his eyes off the impostor. Unlike Éponine, his eyes did not hold mirth, but clear disdain for the man pretending to be him.

“Very _witty_ , as usual,” Enjolras said dryly, snatching the clipboard away from the man. He glanced at the group of students, who all looked bewildered (except for Éponine, who looked rather amused, thinking that she was glad she came to this meeting after all).

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am the real Enjolras,” the real Enjolras said as other man took a seat on the floor, leaning his head against the couch Éponine and Cosette were occupying. “That man is Grantaire, our clown and joke of a college student.”

“And what a fine man he is,” Grantaire added, taking out a flask from inside his jacket and helping himself with a long drink.

 “I asked you to keep them busy for a few minutes while I was finishing setting my room up,” Enjolras scolded Grantaire, “not _mock_ me.”

Grantaire looked down to his lap, looking ashamed for the first time that night. Enjolras simply rolled his eyes, and continued on with the meeting.

Cosette was quite relieved with having Enjolras as an RA. Despite his small frame, he was quite a large presence in the lounge. He was serious -- yes, but he was also very charismatic, getting his first years from a bundle of nerves to actually being mildly excited. He talked of all the classes the school had to offer, the clubs, and the other events that were held on campus on the weekends.

“You’ll never be bored here -- I can promise you that,” Enjolras remarked at one point during his speech, which he had obviously prepared beforehand. He’d smiled when he said that, and Cosette wondered if he’d been sent down from Heaven to specifically attend to college freshmen.

Cosette heard two quiet noises of disbelief from beside her. One came from Éponine, the other, from Grantaire, who was still on the floor. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the two of them.

“So, that’s it for tonight, everyone. My room’s right on this floor, so if you have a question or anything, my room’s 308B. Have a good night’s sleep, and good luck with your first day of classes in the morning!” Enjolras said, bringing the meeting to a close.

 

***

 

“I felt kind of bad for Enjolras,” Cosette said, once the two girls were back in their room, getting their pajamas on. “It must be difficult, trying to get work done with -- Grantaire? -- constantly stretching him thin like that.” 

“He wasn’t doing the impersonation to be _mean_ , Cosette,” Éponine replied, pulling blue running shorts over her underwear. “He was just -- _critiquing_ him.”

“He was impersonating him.”

“To make _us_ feel better.”

Cosette crossed her arms over her nightgown. It was short, with with lace decorating the bottom, so that she'd look pretty, even in sleep.

Eponine saw the gesture and sighed, collapsing onto her bed. “C’mon, Cosette. Live a little. Laugh a little. Don’t tell me it wasn’t funny when he said Enjolras was planning on marrying _the country_ \-- see!” Éponine cheered victoriously as Cosette tried to hide a grin.

“Okay, fine,” Cosette admitted, picking up her brush to run it through her hair a few times before bed. “Oh,” she added, remembering what Éponine had mentioned about Enjolras before, “why does Enjolras think you’re a Satan worshipper?”

“Jesus,” Éponine muttered. “He came to see how I was when I first got here to introduce himself. I was one of the first ones here, and, I guess, the only student he talked to -- which is odd, but that’s how I knew Grantaire wasn’t Enjolras. Anyway, we talked and then he said he had other things to do or whatever, and then I kind of implied that I was going to start my daily sacrifice, anyway.”

“What?” Cosette asked, appalled. “Why would you say that?” she added, though she kind of already knew the answer. This was _Éponine_ she was talking to, after all.

Éponine did a little half-shrug. “Seemed like a good idea at the time, to be honest. I got a good laugh at that. C’mon, it’s funny, I know you can picture his face,” she prodded, watching Cosette turn her back to her to put down the brush.

“You’re ridiculous,” Cosette said, though she was smiling as she climbed into her own bed. “I’m going to bed -- don’t want to sleep in and be late for our first day.”

With the long day behind them, and another one in front of them, Éponine agreed. Normally, she stayed up late and woke up late as well, but it had been a strange day, indeed, what with Cosette and the implied animal sacrificing and _Cosette_. God only knew what tomorrow would have in store for her.

Cosette leaned over in her bed and reached for the light switch, quieting a yawn with her free hand. She shut off the light and lied back down, reflecting on the day. In her mind, she saw her dad waving goodbye as he pulled out of the spot he’d done a terrible parking job to get, and drove away, expression in the rearview mirror unreadable. The car grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared, and in it’s place was Éponine’s grinning face; her teasing voice, and her deep, loud laugh filling Cosette’s ears as if she were listening to the sounds with headphones on. Yet, it was a sound that calmed her, knowing that there was another girl so close. Just another ordinary girl, about to face the same challenges she was come the morning. To know she wasn’t alone in that dark, unfamiliar room was enough to put her at ease for the night. 

In a few minutes, the girls were hovering over dream land, thinking that maybe, perhaps, their roommate wasn’t so bad after all. In fact, in that world in between asleep and awake, both girls sleepily came to the conclusion that they had gotten very, very lucky to have been picked to live together.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Éponine and Cosette embark on their first day on Uni, and run into some interesting characters.

Cosette walked into her first class ten minutes early, pausing at the door to make sure the number painted on it matched the one on her schedule. Pleased that it did, she walked in, feeling a little taller and a little more confident in her heels.  
This class in particular was “Drawing 101”, and it was held it an art room, with tables instead of desks, and art supplies scattered haphazardly around the room.

She grinned, pressing her sketchbook up to her chest. She felt at home immediately. There was nothing she liked better than an art room. She’d been notorious in her old school for hanging out in there during lunch and her free periods. She liked looking at all the work, even if it was bad, and she’d loved her teacher, and she loved watching the under classmen paint or sketch of make collages. She felt like something magical transpired in art rooms, like the cobwebs of people’s minds got cleaned out, and from the monotony of life got shaken up a bit. Some of her fellow art students felt that art classes squashed out all the creativity in them -- for Cosette, it was the opposite.

There was someone already sitting in the room, at the desk nearest the front, where Cosette usually liked to sit. Since, though, she felt nervous at the thought of approaching an unfamiliar person, especially since they seemed to be a few years her senior, she walked past them.

That is, she started to walk past them, until something caught her eye.

They were wearing the same salmon-colored blouse as her -- only, where she paired it with a floral print skirt, they had paired theirs with skinny white jeans.

They noticed Cosette standing, and they smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi -- sorry,” Cosette said back, “I just noticed -- we’re wearing the same blouse.”

They looked down at their own blouse, then at Cosette. They smiled again. “We are. I like your skirt, though. I’d be wearing a skirt now, if I had your legs -- sorry, that sounded creepy -- do you want to sit?”

Cosette looked at the seat across from them. “Are you sure?” and waited for them to nod as she sat.

“I’m Cosette,” she said and she smoothed her skirt.

“Jehan. Is this your first year?”

Cosette nodded. “Yeah...it’s not yours, is it?”

“My second. It’s great here, it really is. I love it.”

Jehan and Cosette hit it off pretty well, and they talked for a little while about where they’d gotten their blouses and where Cosette had gotten her skirt.They were sweet and funny and seemed very, very genuine, which Cosette appreciated. The last thing she’d wanted was to be alone in her first class. She wanted to make friends. She wanted things to be different here. It’d been hard enough convincing her father to let her go somewhere an hour and a half away from home, but it would be even harder if she was all alone here, too.

When Cosette had told her father where she’d chosen to attend university, he’d look over at her from across the kitchen table in shock.

“It’s too far away.”

He hadn’t said it meanly. In fact, he almost sounded sad. She had a feeling that he knew this had been coming, that Cosette desperately wanted to stretch her wings and try at a life somewhere else, no longer under his protective eye. And she knew that he was so protective only because he loved her and worried about her. That still didn’t mean he drove her up the wall most of her teenage years, though, she was sure she’d driven him crazy, too.

“I know it’s far, dad,” Cosette had said reasonably, “but it has all the programs I want, and it’s cheaper than most of the schools I’ve been accepted to --”

“--money isn’t a problem--”

“This is where I want to be,” Cosette said firmly, her stern gaze never leaving her father. “When I picture myself a year from now, this is the only place I can imagine myself being.”

After a week of arguments and discussions and tears on Cosette’s part, her father finally, finally, agreed.

Cosette snapped out of her reverie as more students started walking in, one by one. They all looked tired and nervous, but well-put together, like they’d really tried for their first day.

“How long do you think it’ll take us to stop caring about how we look?” Éponine had asked that morning as she ran around, ten minutes behind her planned schedule, trying to look for her her other boot (it surprised Cosette that she’d lost it so soon -- the hadn’t been occupying the room for 24 hours yet). “Just, you know,” she added, finding the boot in her closet, “throwing on whatever, mumbling about how no one cares what they look like in Uni.”

She wondered how Éponine was fairing her first day. Cosette had wished her luck as she left Éponine alone to finish getting dressed, and  
Éponine had shouted the same back after Cosette had closed their door -- Cosette could hear her muffled voice.

Cosette now watched as a group of three students, two boys, one girl.

Jehan was going through their things as the trio passed them, and as they sat down, Jehan whipped around so fast and so suddenly, Cosette thought _she’d_ gotten whiplash.

“What the _fuck_ did you just say?” Jehan said in a loud, threatening voice that caused the rest of the room to quiet down all at once.

Jehan was looking at the boy, their gray eyes narrowed, the paintbrush they’d just taken out of their bag in hand.

The boy looked rather frightened, as if he had not expected Jehan to hear whatever offensive thing it was that he said. Except, Jehan had heard, though Cosette and the rest of the room had not, and were looking from Jehan to the boy in a mix or nervousness and curiosity.

To Cosette’s surprise, the boy then smirked slightly, though from where she was siting, she could still see fear etched out on his face. “It was an _accident_ , Jehan.”

“Yeah, well next time you ‘accidentally’ misgender me, I’ll ‘accidentally’ shove this paintbrush up your ass,” Jehan responded in a surprisingly warm tone. Then they looked around the room at everyone watching, mouths open.

“That goes for the rest of you,” Jehan added, putting the paintbrush back in their bag. “I prefer gender-neutral pronouns.”

Cosette, in all her shock and awe (she’d never threatened to shove a paintbrush into anything before, no matter how angry she had gotten), decided, in that moment, that she and Jehan were going to be great friends.

 

*     *     *

 

Éponine sat back in her seat, glancing at the syllabus every once and a while, zoning out while the teacher talked. It would've been easier to not pay attention, had she sat in her familiar place -- the second to last row in the lecture hall, one person in. Her reasoning was this: that way you blend in, not the very first, and never the very last. She would be just another face in the probably thousand students her professor saw in a day. She knew, though, from her previous years in schooling, that other students would sit farther in the back on the first day, eliminating every reason she had for isolating herself the way she normally did. Or, at least, she thought she knew.

Her first surprise in college was that some students _actually_ sat in the front rows on the first day. These students in part all looked bright-eyed and eager, in well put together outfits and new, completely blank notebooks -- no, that wasn't true -- Éponine noticed as the girl next to her opened her pink and purple striped book to reveal several pages of notes on the first chapter of their required reading.

Éponine frantically looked down at her old notebook from last year's math class -- the cover all drawn on, the few pages of notes ripped out to make room for this year's classes. It was, as of right now, the only thing she had to take notes in. She _was_ going to buy more, of course -- she'd just procastionated a bit, is all.

Leaning in toward's the girl, Éponine asked in a low voice, "Did we -- um, did we have to read the first chapter?"

The girl tightened her ponytail and looked over at Éponine. She smiled. "Oh, no," she said in a voice so sweet that it made Éponine feel like she had just eaten a spoonful of pure sugar -- she practically could feel the corners of her mouth puckering up from the taste of the girl’s voice. "I just wanted to get a head start, you know?" and, looking from Éponine head to toe, her smile faltered a bit. Éponine figured it might have been the leather leggings. Most people thought they were weird, but paired with a loose white t-shirt and heeled boots, Éponine didn't think it was terrible, especially for an outfit she had thrown together last minute.

A half an hour before, Éponine had been awoken by a rather rough shake. She had, apparently, been in a deep sleep -- deep enough that it constituted someone to physically force her to wake up.

The shaker had been Cosette, and when Éponine opened her eyes, Cosette told her, very seriously that it was 7:45, and she wasn't sure if Éponine had an 8 am like she did.

To Eponine, Cosette had -- despite the rough shake Cosette had given -- looked slightly uncomfortable, unsure whether it would be okay for her to wake up Éponine, or to simply mind her own business, but Éponine hadn't minded. She was always late for things, her motto being "the late the rise worm never gets eaten." So it was good for her, then, that Cosette was the early bird. She even had time to do her makeup, though she had to leave her hair in it's normal, wavy, bed-head state.

Éponine was just taking a sip of her coffee, listening to her professor talking about tardiness to class, when a tall boy with light hair stumbled on in.

"Sorry," he said, with an apologetic grin on his face.

"Ah, Monsieur Pontmercy," the professor said, looking at the boy, rather bemused, instead of annoyed. "Class," she addressed the tired-eyed freshmen sitting before her. "This is my teaching assistant, Marius Pontmercy. He'll be able to answer any questions you have about this class, or any of your classes, in general -- as long as he shows up on time --" she added in a warning voice, as the boy named Marius sat next to the first seat he saw -- next to Éponine.

Marius grinned again, and Éponine side-eyed him, deciding he wasn't worth much of her time, however "helpful" he was supposed to be. He looked to be twenty or so, tall, as stated before, and lanky.

And, unfortunately for Éponine, he wasn't quite sure what to do with his long limbs, like they had unexpectedly grown in a very short amount of time, because the first thing Marius Pontmercy did when he got up to leave at the end of class, was knock over Éponine's coffee.

"Shit!" Éponine said loudly as the thermos hit the floor with a clatter, spilling her drink onto the tile. "Fuck." She looked up to see if Marius would come and help, seeing as it was clearly his fault, but his long legs had already carried him out the door, so she quickly got up, shoved past the throng of students who were exiting the room, and pushed past the door.

She spotted him, a few yards away, walking with his hands in his pockets, and ran, boots clacking on the tile floors, over to him.

"Hey," she said when she was right behind him, but he didn't respond, unable to hear her over the chatter of other people in the wallway.

 Éponine tried again. “Hey!”

He didn't respond, though, so Éponine tried a different approach. To the alarm of her peers -- who, instead of leaving, had watched as the girl with the dark hair and spilled coffee actually ran to the guy who had knocked it over, oddly transfixed by the freshman girl taking on the rather clueless upper classman -- she grabbed the back of her TA’s shirt, and dragged him back to her.

"Hey," she said, a third time, standing on her tip toes to reach his ear. In response, he froze in shock for a moment, shook her grip off of him, and turned around.

"Can I help you?" the boy asked, looking bewilderedly at the girl in front of him.

This was the moment Éponine realized that he wasn't intentionally being rude -- the poor boy was simply completely clueless to the rest of the world around him. Not in a spoiled sort of way, just in a...dazed sort of way.

"Actually,” said Éponine, blunt as ever, “you can, Monsieur Marius."

Not expecting to be called that, Marius blinked twice, his green eyes shocked.

"You knocked over my coffee in class. Come help me clean it up."

Unsurprisingly, he simply followed her, no questions asked. He seemed to be the kind of person to trail behind like a lost puppy. It lso wasn't too shocking when her fellow students parted their group like the red sea to let her and Marius go back into class.

"Oh, God, I am so, so sorry," Marius said when he saw the spill, walking over to it and leaning down to pick up Éponine’s thermos and screw the cap back on. "Really, I am sorry. I didn't even --"

Éponine rolled her eyes. "It's coffee for God's sake, not the last bottle of tequila. Go get some paper towels or something."

And he did, and she waited, sitting on the desk provided for the professor.

When he came back, Marius handed Éponine her books. "I really am sorry, uh --"

"Éponine," she said, motioning for him to place them next to her.

Marius kept up the conversation. Kneeling down to clean the mess, he  said, "I'm Marius Pontmercy."

"I'm aware."

He didn't notice the tightness in her voice, or ignored it, so he continued. "I'm really only doing this teacher assistant thing to add to my resume, you know. It looks good to employers, helping the younger kids out. My grandfather seems to approve of it -- or, at least I think he does, since he sent me some extra money last month when he found out. I don't talk to him much anymore, see, or my aunt. We aren't on the best terms anymore..."

Éponine realized that was the moment she was supposed to say something, keep up her end in the discussion with the boy who was a few verses short of a song. So she spoke:

"Ah -- the answers to all these questions I never asked."

Marius stopped cleaning for a moment and looked Éponine in the eyes. She stared back. Whatever money his grandfather sent, Éponine realized, he must not have put to good use. The elbows of his button up where worn, as were his shoes, and his jeans had a small hole in the knee. He seemed harmless to her -- to least, when he wasn't being and idiot. Maybe a little self-centered and not all with it, but harmless. She imagined him with dog ears and a tail -- a golden retriever of sorts. He was much more likable to her that way.

Marius did not respond to Éponine’s slight insult, so she sighed. "Look, I've got to go --" this, being a lie -- she had nowhere at all to be, "-- but, uh, next time, be more careful, okay, Monsieur Marius? But I guess -- I'll see you on Monday, I suppose."

Grabbing her books and, now empty, thermos, she hopped off the desk, when Marius got up from the floor.

"Look -- I really do feel bad about this -- can I get you another coffee, or something?" he asked, and Éponine groaned internally and imagined a black hole forming underneath the boy and swallowing him whole.

"No," Éponine said, shifting her books to rest on her hip. "I have places to be, people to see, things to do, you know. College." She turned her back and started to leave, her heels clacking on the tile floor.

"Some other time, then," he called to her retreating back, a bit helplessly.

Éponine stopped, took a deep breath, and turned around. "I didn't say 'no' because I had things to do, Monsieur. I merely said that to remind you that I, too, have a life, just like you -- not that it's any of _your_ business. I said 'no' because I do not want you buying me coffee, or buying me anything, for that matter. I would ask you to excuse me, but I only excuse myself, so I bid you good-day, Monsieur Marius, and I will see you on Monday."

She turned again to go, but was stopped again by Marius's voice.

"Do you call me that to tease me, or spite me?"

"I said I was going, Monsieur Marius. Do not try to stop me again."

And then, finally, she left the class, and made her way back to her dorm. It was still moderately bearable out, the last few days of summer warmth still hanging in the air. Éponine used to say she could fell when the air was about to grow cold -- the air, to her, seemed to lose the summer humidity and turn dry, like the coming autumn days were sucking the life right out of the previous season.

Cosette was there when she got back to her room -- she figured as much, that the spill Marius had caused would stall her getting back to the dorm.

Cosette was sitting on her bed, sketching something out, and looked up when she saw Éponine enter.

“Hey, Picasso,” Éponine greeted the blonde, tossing her books carelessly onto her bed, making her way to her closet mirror to check to see if there were any coffee spills. “How was your first day of classes?”

Cosette put her pencil down and watched Éponine checking herself out in the mirror, wondering how exactly Éponine could know someone -- be living with someone -- for a day, and already have nicknames for them.

“It was -- interesting, I suppose,” she said, picking her pencil up again and drumming it on her sketch. “What about you?”

Éponine, seeming to be please with the lack of coffee stains on her clothes, turned toward Cosette.

“Same -- _interesting_.” And the she laughed, and Cosette followed, her smile lingering on her lips longer than Éponine’s did.

There was a short silence, where Cosette went back to her sketching, and Éponine watched her, leaning on her closet door, observing Cosette’s small pale hands as they sketched out something --  it looked like her shoe, but Éponine wasn’t near enough to know for sure. She thought about Cosette, and how she’d been so friendly yesterday, the first time they’d met each other. She wasn’t used to that reaction from other people

She was -- at least, that’s what her high school counselor described her as -- _intimidating_. One eyebrow was constantly up, making it look as though she was denying some unseen authority, and she spoke with a crooked grin on her face, as if she was constantly mocking you -- when she wasn’t speaking, her mouth was fixed into a look of indifference, like she never really heard anything you had to say. Add that to her wardrobe and her “unsightly” (Azelma once called it that) eyebrow ring, and you had one intimidating girl -- “Scary, even,” her...well, someone she’d known, had once commented. “You _can_ be scary -- usually when you open your mouth.”

But Cosette was unafraid -- shy, maybe, which would explain the cautiousness, but she was not afraid of Éponine. She didn’t scowl or roll her eyes at Éponine like the girls in her high school had. The first time she’d seen Éponine, she had smiled over her. And, as said, Éponine wasn’t use to it, but she could give a little kindness back, right?

So she walked over to Cosette’s bed and plopped down on it. “I’m going to get lunch,” she said, meeting Cosette’s eye. “Do you want to come?”

And to Éponine’s relief, Cosette put down her pencil and sketchbook and said, “Yeah, I’d love to!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "They did have some similarities, or course -- their hallmates thought they were completely different, saying to each other 'Opposites attract, you know,' when speaking of the two girls, and maybe that was true, to an extent, but not all the way through."

Within a few weeks, Cosette and Éponine had fallen into a bit of a routine. Some of their hall mates had not been so lucky -- a lot of them argued with their roommates, or just outright hated them. But Cosette and Eponine, just happened to get along, despite the obvious differences.

Cosette, for example, knew Éponine alternated between styles of clothing -- from her leather jacket and high heeled boots one day to baggier-looking boys clothes the next day. Cosette noticed that her one constant, though, was that Éponine always layered, putting jackets on top of sweatshirts on top of tshirts on top of a tank top. Some days she wore no jewelry, others she had huge bracelets that clanged together, or loud earrings that she herself would never dare wear. Either way, Éponine looked tough, like an impenetrable force of nature. She also had a slight feeling that Éponine might have stolen some articles of her clothing -- like the jacket, for example. Or maybe not even stolen it from a store -- just slyly picked it up when someone had foolishly taken it off -- yeah, that was the story she had in her head, because that jacket looked very worn-in and tired, like it had a life before Éponine.

Éponine wore dark makeup on the days she didn’t roll out of bed ten minutes before class, which started happening more frequently as the school year wore on, despite the number of times Cosette tried to wake Éponine up. This included dark eyeshadow that hooded her lids, lots of mascara and eyeliner, though, to Cosette’s surprise, Éponine didn’t wear red lipstick. She seemed like a red lipstick type of girl, and she happened to ask one day as Éponine was getting ready for class.

“I don’t like it much,” Éponine admitted. “Too bright. That’s why I use this instead,” Éponine held up the little bottle of the purple-ish lipstick she used. “It’s more subdued and it looks more natural against my skin. You wanna try?” she asked, holding out the bottle to Cosette, who shook her head.

Éponine grinned and put some on for herself, saying, “You’d look good with this kind of makeup, you know.”

Cosette shook her head, thinking of her own makeup routine, which took five minutes all together -- some eyeliner, a little blush, eyeshadow, mascara -- enough to accentuate her features without taking half her day up.

Éponine shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Cosette was also aware of the two tattoos Éponine had. One was more noticeable than the other. That one was a tattoo on the back of her neck, visible when Éponine put her hair up. It was two cherries with a purple bow wrapping around the stems. The other was barely visible, on Éponine’s right thigh, so she only saw it when Éponine was changing, or wore shorts to bed. That one was a sort of black vine that wrapped once and crept right up her inner thigh, to somewhere Cosette couldn’t see. She kind of expected Éponine to have more, and though she was curious, she didn’t ask about the ones Éponine had. She did, however, admire them, as they were works of art in her mind.

There were also small things Éponine did that Cosette appreciated. Éponine was, by nature, a bit of a slob -- no, slob was kind of a harsh word -- she was just _messy_ , and Cosette sometimes caught Éponine trying to clean her side of the room a few days a week, muttering something about “being a good roommate”. Though Éponine was a chain smoker, she never smoked in the room, always taking the elevator to go downstairs, well away from their shared space. The room still sometimes smelled like it, because Éponine’s clothes carried the smell with them, but Éponine bought sprays by the bottle to try and make it go away.

“This habit is disgusting and expensive,” Éponine snarled one night as she sprayed virtually every surface to get it to smell like flowers, “and yet I can’t quit it. and now this damn room smells like flowers and cigarettes.”

“It’s alright,” Cosette had replied, taking the spray bottle out of her roommate’s hands. To her, it really was, because Éponine did make an effort. “We can just open the window and air out the room in the morning.”

Once, without Cosette’s knowledge, Éponine was too lazy to go outside and light up, so she opened the window and practically hung out of it. This worked for about a minute or so, until a a gust of wind blew the smoke Éponine had just exhaled back at her, into the room, and she felt so bad about it that she quit smoking -- for a day.

There were things that Éponine appreciated about Cosette, too, one of them being her staunch effort to wake her up in the morning so she wouldn’t be late for class. Unfortunately for Cosette, Éponine had a habit of sleep-talking, and would tell Cosette she was awake when, really, she was deep in sleep.

She even extended her thoughtfulness to  buying the both of them coffees on her way back from a mid-afternoon class, instinctively knowing that Éponine would need a mid-day pick me up.

“How did you know I like black coffee?” Éponine had inquired the first day Cosette did this, lifting the lid to take in the familiar scent.

“Just a feeling,” Cosette had replied, adding with a nod, “there’s a shot of espresso in there,” and for a moment she thought Éponine was going to kiss her in thanks.

Cosette was also very neat, which encouraged Éponine to at least try to be the same way. She was organized and had a set schedule for studying, which Éponine followed, not wanting to disturb her, but Cosette didn’t mind when she caught Éponine singing or humming a tune while they were supposed to be doing homework.

“You sing really well,” Cosette had remarked the fourth Wednesday of term. She was at her desk -- Éponine was on her bed.

“Sorry -- was I singing?” Éponine had replied, looking a bit embarrassed at the thought of being caught. “Was I bothering you?”

“You were singing, but it didn’t bother me -- you’re really good, actually. Where you in choir in school?”

“I wasn’t really into extra circulars, and they weren’t exactly crazy about me,” Éponine replied flatly.

Feeling rebuffed, Cosette looked down at her notes and said nothing.

Éponine sighed, and said, “Sorry, that sounded mean. I didn’t mean it to be.”

“It’s alright -- but you are a good singer.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

Cosette looked Éponine in the eye, and smiled widely, “Don’t be so modest. Do you want to go get dinner?”

That was the first night Éponine felt a small lurch in her stomach. She tried to ignore it, however, and accepted Cosette’s offer.

And, even though she had come to admire and respect Enjolras, Cosette still giggled whenever Éponine mimicked him or messed with his head.

The first time he visited their room was to inform them of a possible inspection within the coming week by public safety. His well-rehearsed speech had been cut short as soon as he knocked on the door and Éponine had answered in only a tank top and her underwear, her hair up in a messy bun, nearly giving Enjolras a heart attack.

“Oh, sir Enjolras,” Éponine smirked, barely able to contain her glee, “good of you to come -- I was _just_ about to go find you myself -- I was wondering how to get blood stains off the --”

“ _Why aren’t you wearing any pants_?” Enjolras blurted out, having recovered from the shock.

Éponine raised her eyebrow and shot back,“Why are _you_ wearing pants?”

"Éponine, don't be --"

"Come on, Enjolras, come in and join the pantless party. I’ll invite the whole hall, make it an orgy.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“No, but it does seem as though I’ve lost my pant -- oh for Christ’s sake, Enjolras, they’re just my _legs_ \--” Éponine added, rolling her eyes and Enjolras quickly averted his eyes to the ceiling. Cosette could be heard trying not to laugh in the background, but it kept escaping her in short bursts.

Enjolras heard her, too. He looked passed Éponine into the room, his lips set in a thin line. Then he crossed his arms over his chest and said, “I have something important to tell you, Éponine.”

“Oh- _kay_.”

“I can’t tell you if you don’t put pants on.”

“I’m not putting pants on until you tell me.”

This went on and on for several minutes, until Éponine made a pants pun and Enjolras got so infuriated that he slammed Éponine’s door on himself, muttering something about “indecent exposure”.

They did have some similarities, of course -- their hallmates thought they were completely different, saying to each other “Opposites attract, you know,” when speaking of the two girls, and maybe that was true, to an extent, but not all the way through.

They both liked Jane Austen, which seemed liked the kind of books Éponine would hate, but she loved them, and one night they pulled an all-night discussing _Pride and Prejudice_.

Éponine had lent Cosette a book, _Little Women_ , the next day.

“It’s about sisters, too,” she told Cosette as she dropped the book in her lap and went to change into pajama pants. “Less about the marriage and stuff, but it’s really good.”

Leafing through the book, Cosette sighed slightly and said, “I kind of wish I had a sister -- or any sibling, really.”

Éponine laughed and sat on her bed, looking up at the pictures on her wall. “They’re a pain most of the time, but I love them. I miss them, too.”

“Are they coming with your parents to family weekend?”

Éponine peered at Cosette over her textbook quizzically. “Family Weekend?”

“Well, yeah,” Cosette said, sitting cross-legged on her bed, letting her skirt ride up a bit. “Well, it’s parents weekend, but sometimes sibling co --”

“My parents aren’t coming,” Éponine cut her off quietly. “So I highly doubt Azelma and Gavroche are, too.”

They were quiet for a couple of minutes, with Éponine looking down at her hands, letting her hair create a curtain around her face, and Cosette looked at the blue book Éponine had lent her.

“Shit,” Eponine said, picking her head up and looking at the ceiling. “Shit shit shit. I’m sorry, Cosette, I’m so - so sorry -- I didn’t mean to be -- _shit_ \--”

“You don’t have to apologize, Éponine,” Cosette started, but Éponine kept going.

“I have to learn to be nicer to people,” she told Cosette. “I’m kind of just used to snapping at people.”

Cosette picked at a loose thread in her sheets, wondering what could’ve happened to the girl to make her so angry, and how she could help.

“Maybe -- would you -- my dad is coming up for the day that weekend. Saturday. We’re probably just going to hang out and go out to eat. Would you want to come?”

Éponine snorted, getting up and getting her cigarettes from her desk. “I’m not really ‘parent’ material -- besides, don’t you just want to be with your dad?”

“You could just come out to dinner if you want -- I mean, if you really want. Don’t feel obligated.”

Éponine slipped her carton into her coat pocket and made her way to the door, a thoughtful look on her face. She wondered -- couldn’t help but wonder -- two things -- the first being why she couldn’t be nice to people, or at least tell them things without seeming like the biggest bitch to ever walk the face of the earth. The second was why Cosette, her roommate, had to be the nicest person to walk this planet.

And it wasn’t just nice. Nice was kind of a shitty word to use, mainly because Éponine associated it with guys who got pissy when she wouldn’t sleep with them just because they were “nice guys.” Cosette was...sweet and thoughtful and made this funny face when she laughed but knew she shouldn’t. She seemed to care -- _legitimately_ care about Eponine, for no apparent reason other than she just did. Azelma and Gavroche were different -- they were siblings, her family, and they loved her and she loved them unconditionally.

She shook these thoughts out of her head and glanced at Cosette; maybe whatever she left behind didn’t really matter. Cosette was here, Cosette was now, and she was offering Eponine free food.

“Sure, Cosette. I’ll go with you and your dad together.”

At this remark, Cosette shifted herself to the edge of her bed, on her knees, and grabbed her roommate’s hand, and said, looking up at her, “We’re friends, right?”

Éponine bit her lip, but grinned all the same. “Yeah, Cosette, we are.”

“I’ve never had a friend before.” Cosette sounded innocent, child-like, the same way a young girl would say the same words -- _I’ve never had a friend before_ \-- eager, earnest, blissful.

There was a pause where they shared a look, their fingers intertwined and their eyes locked. And then --

“Neither have I, Cosette.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She picked up the pack and set out to the elevators, whistling loudly and tossing the pack from from hand to the other, and just as she pressed the orange “down” button, she heard the quiet mutterings of two familiar voices somewhere behind her.
> 
> Turning, Éponine caught, out of the corner of her eye, two boys. One was short and blonde-haired; the other was lanky and thin.
> 
> Enjolras and Marius."

Parent’s Day came on a particularly warm weekend in early October, just as the trees were beginning to change from their bright greens to their rich reds, golden yellows, and bright oranges. But there was still a promise of autumn in the air, the feeling that the cool breezes of the fall would break through the heat, allowing the students to substitute their iced coffees for pumpkin lattes or hot chocolate; their flips flops and shorts for lace-up boots and light jackets. It was a welcome change, though. With the promise of fall comes the promise of change. The leaves fluttered off the trees to the ground, and life begins again.

Éponine found herself alone on the morning of Parent’s Day. She’d woken up early to see Cosette rummaging through her dresser drawers, deciding on an outfit to wear for her father’s arrival. Her blonde hair was in a braid, a thin pink headband pushing away stray strands, and she was in a knee-length, pale pink floral skirt and a white ruffled tank top. She tossed her braid over her shoulder as she went to her closet and pulled out a light beige sweater and put it on, only to then pull out heeled ankle-length boots and step into them gracefully. Then she walked to her desk to do her makeup.

“Are you _sure_ you don’t want to come with us?” Cosette had asked, looking at Éponine’s sleepy figure from the reflection in her desk mirror. “We’ll probably just be touring the place and talking. No big father-daughter activities or whatever.”

Éponine forced back a yawn, stretching her arms high above her head as she sat up.

Cosette watched in the mirror, waiting for a response.

“I’m good,” Éponine had replied, letting her hair loose from her ponytail, only to tie it back up in a bun. “Go spend time with your dearest father. I’ll meet up with you guys here -- where are you going?” she asked as Cosette picked up her bag and made to leave the room.

Cosette furrowed her brow. “To go see my dad?”

“He’s not coming up here?”

Cosette shook her head. “Going to meet him in the parking lot. But we’ll probably come up here to get you around three or so. I’ll call you if anything changes and when we’re on our way.”

Éponine sighed and fell back into her bed as she exhaled, as if she were doing a yoga exercise. “Go,” she had said, waving her hand towards the door. “Have fun. Don’t tell your dad anything bad about me -- I don’t want my terrible first impression ruined by the truth.”

“You’re not that bad.”

“ _You’re_ going to be late. Your poor father will be lost.”

Cosette rolled her eyes as she approached the door. She opened it and turned to Éponine to say goodbye, but Éponine was waggling her eyebrows at her playfully, so Cosette just rolled her eyes and grinned, shutting the door without saying good-bye.

So Éponine was alone, again. The tiny room was all to herself, and she was too hungry to go back to sleep, so she went to the mini fridge and got herself an apple, munching away happily as she looked out the window at the tree. Its leave just reached the very bottom of their window, so that the trunk of the tree could not be seen, like a cloud of leaves hovering directly below the window.

She then went to brush her teeth, which was fairly uneventful, but she examined herself in the mirror as she brushed. Tan skin, dark hair, dark eyes, a tattoo on the back of her neck (she’d have to wear her hair down today), one on her thigh. Would Cosette’s dad would like her? He didn’t seem to put off by her for the short time they’d met at the beginning of the semester, and she’d barely spoken to begin with.

But she was sure Cosette had mentioned Éponine to her father, so she couldn’t have said anything bad.

Right?

Putting the thoughts out of her mind, half knowing she probably wouldn’t censor herself anyway, even if it was for Cosette’s dad, she padded on back to her room so she could grab her cigarettes and go outside to have a smoke or two. Or five. Or the whole pack. Whatever would stop her hands from shaking.

She picked up the pack and set out to the elevators, whistling loudly and tossing the pack from from hand to the other, and just as she pressed the orange “down” button, she heard the quiet mutterings of two familiar voices somewhere behind her.

Turning, Éponine caught, out of the corner of her eye, two boys. One was short and blonde-haired; the other was lanky and thin.

Enjolras and Marius.

She felt compelled to drop in and say hello, though they were, arguably, the two people on campus who gave her the most grief. With Enjolras, it was always something about “pants” or “smoking too near the building”. As for Marius -- he’d spilled her coffee the first day of classes. Éponine wasn’t about to forget that so easily.

So she watched as they walked into the lounge, where Enjolras had their first hall meeting, and she followed behind them quietly.

They didn’t notice her until they had both sat down in the lounge, arguing quietly, which was a great feat for Enjolras, Éponine knew. He normally had two volumes: “outdoor” voice and “can you please stop being so dense I am trying to talk about important and serious things” voice. But it was rather early on a Saturday -- around 8:30 or so, and people were still sleeping, Parents’ Day or no.

“Morning,” Éponine said to the two boys as she opened the door and stuck her head into the lounge. She noticed that the furniture had been re-arranged from the last time she’d been in it (which was at the start of the semester).

They immediately stopped their very adult conversation and turned to the source of the voice. Marius’s brows raised in surprise, and he greeted Éponine with an enthusiastic, “Good morning!”

Enjolras, on the other hand, narrowed his eyes at Éponine. “What are you doing up so early?” he asked accusingly. “You don’t usually wake up until 3 pm, from what I’ve heard from Cosette.”

Éponine shrugged and entered the room, slightly smirking. “It’s autumn, Enjolras. Sleep patterns change for the Satanist.”

Marius looked back from Enjolras to Éponine bewilderedly, not in on the joke.

Enjolras took note of Marius’s expression and sighed. “Pontmercy, this is Éponine. Éponine --”

Éponine cut him off abruptly as she sat across from them on the blue couch that Cosette and her had occupied a few weeks prior. “I’ve already had the -- uh -- _pleasure_ \-- of meeting Marius. He’s my TA.”

As Marius nodded in agreement, Enjolras let out a sound that sounded something along the lines of, “God help the boy,” but said in a clearer voice, “Éponine here tried to convince me that she was a Satanist.”

“I could be. You don’t know me that well,” Éponine said slyly. She crossed her legs on the couch and rested her elbows on her knees, her chin cupped in her hands.

Enjolras huffed. “You think you’re so funny --”

“Me?” Éponine asked innocently, raising an eyebrow. “Not at all. It’s you, oh fearless RA, who is the funny one here. But no matter,” she continued, taking her face out of her hands and waving Enjolras’s remark away with her hand. “Why are you here so early? Preparing to welcome your parents, I suppose?”

Both boys looked at each other, then back to Éponine. Marius looked sad. Enjolras looked disgruntled.

“What?” Éponine asked, reaching out her leg to nudge Enjolras with her bare foot. “Your parents aren’t coming to see how their A-plus, perfect son is fairing?”

Enjolras bit his lip. He looked up at the ceiling angrily. Éponine looked up to where his gaze was set. There was nothing there to infuriate him -- nothing Éponine could see, anyway, but it was better that Enjolras was cross at the ceiling, as opposed to Éponine.

“My parents and I aren’t on speaking terms,” Enjolras said in a tight voice, still not looking at Éponine -- or Marius, for that matter. “Not for a while, anyway.”

She watched Enjolras, and she knew that Enjolras knew that she was watching him. She was rather shocked, if she was going to be honest with herself. Enjolras was the golden boy. Maybe a bit uptight, yeah, but he was also smart and involved and, like, the _perfect_ kid. The only explanation Éponine could come up with for this was that Enjolras just had shitty, unappreciative parents. Which made more sense than anything else. Parents were shitty. _She_ , of all people, would know that.

Éponine wasn’t going to ask Enjolras about it, figuring he was more of a private person, but he offered up the information, saying gruffly, “Our political opinions clashed. Severely.”

Marius was looking at his knees, Enjolras at the ceiling, Éponine at Enjolras.

Shitty parents, indeed. Looks like she wasn’t the only one. Only, she didn’t say that out loud. It’s one thing, of course, to bitch about your own parents; it’s quite another for someone else to shit talk them. So she remained silent, wringing her hands. The boys remained silent, as well.

The discomfort between the three of them sat there, practically suffocating Éponine until, to ease the tension, she nudged Marius with her foot the same way she did with Enjolras. “What say you, Marius?” she asked. “I know you said something about your grandpa once,” she added, realizing that, yeah, he had, and that she had stored it into her brain for some unknown reason. She continued, “But are your parents coming down? Or up? Or anywhere?”

Marius shifted uncomfortably in his seat. So did Enjolras, who wasn’t looking at either of them, but instead fixed his gaze on an invisible fuzz on his hoodie. Éponine’s gaze shifted from one boy to the other, prepared for the worst.

Running a freckled hand through his hair, Marius said quietly, “My parents are dead.”

Éponine stared at Marius incredulously, wanting to turn to Enjolras for confirmation, but she couldn’t move her gaze from Marius, who looked up at her, his mouth a firm line. Recalling how short and rude she’d been since Marius and the coffee incident, she felt guilty over her behavior. Then she felt guilty for feeling guilty, like, hello, should she being feeling sorry for him because he had no parents? That didn’t exactly make her an A+ person. She had a handful of classes to be nice to him, but her stubborn, judgmental mind, still stuck on the coffee thing, stopped her from doing anything but ignoring him.

Éponine sighed, deciding to own up to her own parental situation. “My parental units are not attending, either,” she said, but then she felt stupid for saying it. At least they _had_ to choice to attend -- if Éponine had contacted them and told them about it. Marius’s didn’t. “They’re, uh, not too invested in my life.”

To her surprise, Marius looked empathetic, and she swore she could see a sympathetic grin on Enjolras’s face.

“What _are_ they invested with, if not you?” Marius asked timidly, as if afraid she’d snap back at him. Éponine felt bad for that, too. Hadn’t she just told Cosette just days ago that she was trying to be nice to people?

She turned her attention to Marius’s question. Biting her lip, she gave a half shrug. “Not me,” was all she said. Nothing more. What else could she say about them, exactly? No one at her old school had asked, but then again, that’s because they knew. Everyone in town seemed to know.

Enjolras was fidgeting now. Éponine thought maybe it was because all this personal talk was making him uncomfortable. Actually, it was getting under her skin, too. She was unsettled, and the lounge, with windows substituting for walls, felt like a fishbowl, and the three of them, fish. She was very unsure as to why, though. Obviously the semi-soul bearing “my parents hate me/don’t care/are dead” conversation played a significant part, but it was something else, too. Though, she couldn’t quite place her finger on it.

Life lessons are elusive little fuckers.

So she shook her head and got up so abruptly that even Enjolras looked at her curiously.

“I’m meeting Cosette later,” Éponine said. “Gotta get ready. And,” she said, pulling the pack of cigarettes out of her hoodie pocket and shaking them, “gotta have my morning smoke. Good talking to the both of you,” she added half-heartedly, making her way tentatively to the door, then slipping out of it, feeling like both a ghost and a very solid being all at the same time.

Her feet were heavy and her mind was hazy. That, she realized when she was outside in the bright October daylight, examining the lit cigarette in between her pointer and middle finger, was a sensation she had never felt before.

And, to be quite honest, she wasn’t sure if she hated the unfamiliar feeling, or welcomed it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You never realize how much you miss someone until they're right in front of you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long to get published! Last week was my birthday, then I got sick, and now I'm blog-sitting, so it's been a little hectic. Thank you so much for your patience!

While Éponine was busy embarrassing herself in front of Enjolras and Marius, Cosette and her father were walking about the campus. They’d already gone to a presentation together, and Cosette had shown him where her classrooms were. Monsieur Fauchelevent joked and laughed, and a line of worry stretched across his forehead when he saw how far away her classes were from another another.

“Are the jackets you brought warm enough for the winter? It looks like such a long trip from one place to the other?”

Cosette had simply smiled and nodded. Her father had asked the same question over the summer, while she was packing, and it had irritated her, but now, with him so far away -- too far away to show his concern, it felt nice to be worried about.

Of course, they talked on the phone sometimes, even skyped a few, but Cosette had gotten so busy with school and hanging out with Jehan and Éponine that their daily talks had turned into fortnightly ones. It’s not that Cosette forgot, of course, but she was busy during the day, and at night pulled all nighters, so it was rather difficult to wiggle her father in between college. She hoped she’d get it right one day; strike a proper balance between the two. For now, though, having him here, in front of her, without a computer screen or phone acting as a wall between them, was enough.

Now, walking around campus, her father stuck his arm out for her to take, and Cosette happily took it as she watched the wind rattle a nearby tree, scattering leaves to her feet.

Her father looked on, his eyes filled with a memory Cosette could not see. “Do you remember when you were little and we used to take walks?” he asked. “You used to step on every leaf when the fall came. A walked that should’ve taken twenty minutes took a good hour or so.”

Cosette furrowed her brow in thought. She was trying to pull the memory back towards her, but every time she tried, it slipped away. Instead, she resorted to stepping on the leaves at her feet, the memories coming back to her with the familiar “crunch” under her shoes.

“I remember, Dad,” she said, smiling at him. Then, after a pause, she added, “I’m really glad you came. It’s so good to see you.”

Monsieur Fauchelevent grinned warmly, the wrinkles in his face more pronounced. His hair looked a litter grayer, the lines in his face more distinct, and he was a tad bit thinner, but Cosette assumed that was only because she wasn’t around to bake for him anymore. His looks, though, were still warm, his voice gentle yet firm, and it reminded her of home.

“It’s been strange, getting use to the house without you. But I’ve managed -- and so have you, as it seems. Your classes are fine, your roommate is good, you’ve made some friends -- how is Éponine?”

“You’ll have to ask her yourself later,” Cosette answered. “But she really is sweet, dad. Like, the sweetest. She’s a little rough around the edges, but she’s considerate and funny and she cares, even if she doesn’t show it. She’s my best friend,” she finished, her chest swelling with pride for her friend.

Her father chuckled, but it soon grew sad, and his face fell slightly. Cosette noticed and shook his arm.

“What it is, Dad?” she asked, her voice seeped in concern, shaking his arm again when he did not reply. “Are you alright?”

Her dad came out of his reverie and shook his head. “I’m fine, Cosette, don’t worry. I just --” he paused for a moment and looked deeply into Cosette’s familiar blue eyes. “Your mother would have been proud, you know.”

He’d said this to Cosette before, perhaps a thousand times -- on graduation day, when she got into college, learning to drive. But this time the statement fell upon Cosette’s ears differently. She knew she was nearing the age when her mother had had her. This meant, she knew, that she was also approaching the age when her mother died. She tried not to think about it too often, and hadn’t really spoken much about it with Éponine, but with her father -- her adoptive father -- sometimes these conversations were inevitable.

Cosette simply sighed and walked on, looking at her feet, suddenly careful not to step on any dried up leaves.

Her father caught up with her as they passed the library, which was so old Éponine declared it “haunted,” and this is where they ran into Jehan, who was talking with their own parents.

“Jehan’s in my art class,” Cosette explained as everyone introduced each other enthusiastically. “They’re fantastic at painting,” she said to their mother, whose hair was the same coloring as her child’s.

Jehan elbowed her playfully in the ribs, blushing slightly. “You’re much better at sketching, though. And memorizing all those terms. Cosette’s stayed up with me at _least_ one night every two weeks to help me go over the terms --”

“That’s because _you_ refuse to make notecards and make everything much more difficult for yourself --”

The group of adults watched, half amused, half confused as their children conversed back and forth, teasing each other and refusing the compliments given by one to the other.

“I am a _poet_ , not an artist --”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t be good at painting, too!”

And while all of this was going on, no one, not Jehan, not their mother or father, not Monsieur Fauchelevent, and certainly not Cosette, noticed the tall light haired boy approach the building some feet away. And no one noticed his eyes find themselves on Cosette’s laughing figure, gazing at her as if transfixed.

 

*      *     *

 

Marius decided to stay with Enjolras for a little while after Éponine awkward excused herself, thinking she’d caused much more damage by talking to them than she had intended to.

Thoughts of his parents lingered when Éponine had brought it up, but her questions had been innocent, if not harmless, and Marius, though a bit disheartened at his parents never being able to see his accomplishments, was not angry. He thought about them, or course, but today, he also thought about his grandfather, who had attended Parent’s Day every year but this one, what with his and Marius’s falling out over the summer.

The boys didn’t say much to each other. Normally, they did not get along, but with both their guardians unwilling to show up to anything of importance, it was a common ground that they shared.

Eventually, though, Enjolras had to go back to his room, just in case families came to meet him and question him about how much of the rules he enforced.

So Marius made his way to the library, thinking he’d get a head start on his paper for his English class. It was a nice day for October, so Marius decided to take the long way, letting his mind do it’s usual wandering as he walked along, backpack slung over his shoulder, absentmindedly tapping his fingers against his leg.

He approached the back entrance of the library and, curiously, found it locked, so he simply made his way to the front entrance, making a mental note to tell one of the librarians who worked there.

He walked up the stairs, some feet away from the group chatting right in front of the right side doors, but close enough so that he could make out their faces. He saw three adults, and two students with braids in their hair, laughing together...he was aware that he knew the kid with the dark hair, whose back was turned to him but he was not focusing on that kid, he was focusing on the blonde girl.

She was laughing, her blue eyes lit up, her smile so big that it showed nearly all her teeth. She had a heart shaped face, and her hair resembled that of angels. In fact, so did her laughter -- no, really, everything about her reminded him of angels, and he was surprised she did not carry a harp, or a bow and arrow, or that she did not stand daintily on a cloud, as opposed to the dirty concrete step.

Marius gazed curiously at the girl, hoping she would shift her gaze and notice him -- wait, no, he hoped she wouldn’t -- but then --

Poor Marius’s heart was racing as his eyes lingered on the girl. The only train of thought running through his head held questions like, “What is her name?” “Does she go here?” “How old is she?” “Who is she?” and, most importantly, “How do I manage to talk to her?”

He found himself trapped in his spot, his feet unwilling to move, his voice not daring to say anything. All he could do was watch as the two groups parted, the blonde walking down the stairs of the library with what he assumed to be her father.

He intended to watch until the girl was out of ear shot, until he could no longer make her out from the other families walking about (could he do that, or would she always be more than noticeable to him? Would her face ever blur from his mind?), but then something that was nothing short of a miracle caused him to turn and practically walk away.

The girl tucked a piece of flyaway hair over her shoulder, and when she did, she turned her head slightly, and noticed Marius, rooted to the spot, his face shock and looked as if it was devoid of blood flow.

The girl simply smiled and walked on, and Marius felt his heart drop, as if it were full of lead. 

 

*     *     *

 

 

Wearing only her matching blue bra and underwear, Éponine stood in front of her open closet, head crooked to the side, hands on her hips. She was clicking her tongue absentmindedly, trying to decide what was suitable enough to wear for an outing with Cosette and Monsieur Fauchelevent.

The problem was, all she had was...black. A lot of black. Boots. Oversized sweatshirts. Baggy white t-shirts. She was pretty sure she’d even packed fishnets with her before school started, but she never thought to bring something more... _professional_ looking, perhaps?

She groaned and ran both hands through her hair, gripping it like she was ready to pull it out of her scalp. This was probably one of the worst ideas she’d ever had, and that included the time she jumped off the roof of her house because she was drunk and someone dared her to do it. She’d been too drunk to remember who had dared her, but not drunk enough to forget the pain when she jumped off, hitting the wet grass with a thud, her head hitting the ground, and her friends told her they had to bring her to the hospital to make sure she wasn’t concussed, only, she had shaken them off, not caring if she was.

“You could _die_ in your sleep, you know,” one of her friends had informed her when she refused their fourth or fifth offer to take her to the hospital.

“Do you think I care?” Éponine had snarled back, her fingernails digging into her thighs.

Éponine groaned again and stomped her feet on the ground in frustration. She’d never been the best with thinking things through before acting (ex: jumping off the roof of her house), but she’d known when Cosette asked her to go to dinner with her dad that this would be a bad idea. But, goddamn, she couldn’t say no to Cosette. Her eyes always lit up when she was happy and she bit her lower lip a little bit, and when she smiled you could see her dimples. Making her happy was just kind of the best thing ever.

At least, to Éponine, it was.

Realizing her mind had wandered from her outfit choice to Cosette, Éponine turned slightly to face Cosette’s side of the room, looking at the tacked up sketches she’d done. Some were dumb things, like trees or the stone benches outside the admissions building, but most were of Éponine, either studying, or laying down, or putting make-up on. It was strange to her to see her face on someone else’s wall, almost in the same way her encounter with Enjolras and Marius had been strange.

For a moment, Éponine’s eyes lingered to Cosette’s closet, wondering if there was anything she could borrow for the night. She though better of it, though, knowing Cosette’s style was the exact opposite of her own, and went back into her closet, half-heartedly going through everything on her hangers, pausing only when she saw something that resembled a dress.

And a dress it was. Éponine pulled it out gingerly as if she wasn’t sure it was real. Only it _was_ real. She was holding it in her very hands.

It was black and tight and long-sleeved, with a low scoop neck, short and sexy and probably still not appropriate to meet someone’s parents.

“What the fuck,” Éponine said in defeat, shrugging her shoulders as she took the dress off the hanger to try it on.

As she wiggled into it, she tried to remember what, exactly, it was from, because she was not a dress wearer. But once she put it on and looked at herself in the mirror, she realized she’d bought it for her graduation ceremony in May. And then she remembered Azelma had cooed over the thing, and insisted Éponine take it with her to school.

“You never know when you might need it,” Azelma sing-songed as she lay on her bed, watching Éponine throw her clothes into suitcases. “For a date, or if you go out with friends, _or_ you need a grade raised...”

“Azelma,” Éponine had said seriously, stopping to give her sister a stern look.

“Just kidding, kinda -- hey, it’s not _my_ fault you have a hot body. Use it to your advantage, is all I’m saying,” she’d said sagely with a half-shrug.

Éponine laughed now as she piled her hair on her head, trying to ignore the knot in her stomach. She’d talked to her brother and sister a few times since she’d come to school. Not because she didn’t care, of course, but because they, like her, were so goddamn elusive. Azelma had a phone, but she rarely picked up, choosing to engage herself in whatever was actually right in front of her. Gavroche, on the other hand, was too young to have a phone, so his calls were less frequent -- usually whenever he managed to find money and a pay phone.

She stared at herself in her desk mirror, staring at the purple marks underneath her eyes. Maybe she was imagining them. Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she shouldn’t have left her brother and sister fend for themselves with their parents.

Maybe she should’ve tried to get in touch with them to come to Parent’s day.

Maybe.

Sighing, Éponine did her makeup slowly, carefully, making sure the wings of her eye liner were perfectly even, that the purple eyeshadow was dark enough, that the blush highlighted her cheekbones, and her mascara had no clumps. It was too late to try and call her siblings now, obviously, not that she thought they would be able to get a ride here.

But the invite would’ve been nice.

She sighed again, trying to put it out of her head. At least Azelma had thought to sneak the dress into one of her suitcases.

She grabbed her spiked dark purple ankle boots just as she heard Cosette slide their room key into the lock. The moment seemed slow to her. She was watching, but her eyes weren’t sending the message to her brain fast enough, and it all felt very surreal, until, suddenly, it didn’t. Stepping quickly into her shoes, wringing her jittery hands together, she approached the door just as the little red light above the door handle turned off, allowing it’s bright green counterpart to turn on in response, like a secret code.

Time to get this show on the road.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They call it a "crush" because liking someone has actually been known to crush your soul into several hundred different, unmendable pieces.

Éponine sat and watched with mild curiosity and Cosette and her father talked and shared stories of when Cosette was younger. It was rather odd to her, who had never had this kind of interaction with her own parents, or any adult, really. Conversations with her parents were not to reminisce on childhood; they were confrontations, ones that always ended in hitting or shouting or cursing each other out.

But Cosette and her dad were the opposite of that. They sat on either side of the booth, Cosette next to Éponine, with Monsieur Fauchelevent on the other side by himself (Éponine silently thanked Cosette for this, though she had a feeling Cosette didn’t sit next to her by chance), talking and laughing, their smiles so wide Éponine wondered if their faces hurt. Every once in a while, one of their voices would rise in excitement, then, remembering where they were, would fall.

Éponine really enjoyed listening to the stories about younger Cosette, who had been adopted at the age of seven after her mother died. Monsieur Fauchelevent had been a friend of her mother’s, and took her in when she had no one.

This was rather surprising -- Cosette had made no prior mention to being adopted, just that she had no mother. Éponine was pretty sure Cosette hadn’t shared this part of her life with her. She didn’t think she’d forgotten -- it wasn’t as if Cosette’s childhood had been something you had to rack your brains for to remember.

Then again, neither was hers.

Of course, they hadn’t told the somber story in full. Monsieur Fauchelevent had simply mentioned it in passing a few times -- “Oh, after I adopted Cosette,” and “When your mother died, God rest her soul” -- as if he expected Éponine to already know. She made sure to make no sign that she wasn’t already privy to this information.

She didn’t blame Cosette, either. It wasn’t as if she had shared her life story, and her parents were alive. She didn’t exactly expect Cosette to step forward and whip out a family tree or baby videos, or something.

All the same, Cosette was eyeing Éponine from time to time after the few times her dad brought up her mother’s death or her adoption. She obviously hadn’t told her dad that Éponine did not know.

Other than that, the evening went smoothly. Cosette’s dad took them to some fancy restaurant Éponine had never even heard of, and she was glad she wore a dress. Monsieur Fauchelevent was just the same as he was when Éponine first met him -- gray-haired, laugh lines, jovial -- though she was shocked when he complimented her neck tattoo when he stepped aside to let her exit the dorm, saying, “If I had the nerve to get something like that when I was your age, I’d be covered in tattoos now. I’d look like a biker.”

Cosette had blushed and rolled her eyes, chiding her dad, but Éponine had laughed out loud, her wide grin exposing her rarely seen dimples.

She liked Cosette’s dad.

And he was probably the first adult who liked her back.

On the other side of Éponine, Cosette laughed along with her dad as he retold the story of Cosette’s first ballet recital when she was nine where she toppled on stage, taking the rest of the girls down with her like tu-tued dominoes. She also had one eye on Éponine, who had dropped the rigid posture she’d donned when her and her father came up to the dorm to get her. Her shoulders were still back in the usual confidence, but her back was noticeably less stiff.

Now, she looked to her father, the crinkles by his eyes revealed by his laughter. She could tell that he liked Éponine and probably found her “cheeky” and “charming” (though she didn’t know it, those were the words her father would use later on to describe her dark-haired roommate). He was also doing what he did best -- putting people at ease. This time, his target was Éponine, who grinned more and more as he told more stories about Cosette’s childhood.

“And I thought you were the graceful one out of the two of us,” Éponine said slyly, grinning at Cosette and gently knocking her leg into Cosette’s underneath the table. She watched Cosette blush, her cheeks turning the slightest shade of pink, and she felt herself go warm, as well.

Shaking her head and laughing at Éponine, her blush subsided a little bit. “Yeah, because _I_ was the one who tripped down the stairs on our way to dinner the other night.”

“Unfair,” Éponine sniffed as Monsieur Fauchelevent laughed at her misfortune. “That had nothing to do with my lack of coordination. My shoe was untied.”

“You _never_ make sure your shoe laces are tied.”

“At least _I_ always _wear_ shoes. You run to and fro without them like a --”

“I’d prefer to _not_ have my feet confined, thank you very much,” Cosette replied cooly, crossing her arms and returning Éponine’s kick under the table.

Éponine felt a strange tingle go up her side, as if a hundred butterflies had beat their wings lightly against her skin. She rubbed it absentmindedly - or attempted to, but the sensation had sneaked up her arm, as well. It was as if it were contagious.

When the girls calmed down, Monsieur Fauchelevent turned his attention to Éponine. “So, Éponine. What are you majoring in again? It must’ve slipped my mind.”

Éponine blinked. “Um. Undeclared so far. But I’m leaning toward some with music. Music education, maybe.”

Cosette smiled approvingly, but Éponine could not meet her eye. She simply looked down at the white napkin on her lap.

“Éponine is an awesome singer, dad,” Cosette chimed in, taking a sip of her lemonade. “She doesn’t think so --”

“Because I’m not -- ow!” Éponine said as Cosette elbowed her in the ribs to silence her.

“She’s just being modest. She likes to sing while studying, which would normally be a distraction to some of us. But it isn’t.”

Éponine rolled her eyes, trying to ignore the twisting that was going on in her stomach. She had absolutely no idea what was going on. Her and Cosette were just friends -- friends, is all. Friends who shared books and music and went to dinner together. For God’s sake, they shared a dorm room together.

Or maybe it wasn’t so sudden as Éponine thought. Maybe, for the past few weeks, she had been having the same symptoms, only to push them farther down inside her so that they would go away. It was, after all, Cosette who had caught Éponine’s arm as she fell, and Éponine could feel Cosette’s small but strong grip on her forearms hours later. And sometimes she would find herself looking at Cosette while she did her makeup, or braided her hair, watching her fingers twirl her locks from one side to the other, oftentimes adding a ribbon for decoration. Or she’d watch as Cosette drew her sitting on her bed, studying. She would watch the way Cosette’s fingers would grip the pencil, a light but sure hold. And she’s bite her tongue in concentration, often having to stop to brush stray hairs out of her face, and the pride that shown on her face when she was done, finally, offering to show Éponine the drawing...

Internally, Éponine groaned as she looked from her roommate to her father, who were both laughing at a story she could not hear.

_This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening. This is not happening_ , Éponine thought helplessly as Cosette’s leg teasingly brushed her own again. _This isn’t happening._

But it was all in vain.

 

 

  *     *     *



 

“So, Was it that bad?” Cosette said after she had seen her father off, listening to his high praise of Éponine, that she was a “spirited girl” and a “good friend,” and, most importantly, perhaps, “a fantastic roommate.”

Cosette was silently pleased that he so approved of her friend, knowing that someone loved Éponine almost as much as Cosette did. She didn’t say that, though, but instead allowed a triumphant grin play onto her lips. She wouldn’t tell Éponine any of this later, either, because she knew she’d blush and rebut any praises her father had sung for her. That was Éponine’s way, to act so high and confident and sure of herself, only to squirm under compliments as if she were uncomfortable in her own skin.

So Cosette had made her way back to her room, feeling a bit forlorn as she saw her father’s car drive out of the lot and off campus. When she slid her card into the door and opened it, she saw Éponine changing from her dress into a long t-shirt that exposed her long legs and her second tattoo.

“It wasn’t too bad,” Éponine said, tugging the t-shirt down to give her hands something to do. “He was nice. Nicer than any adult I’ve ever known, anyway.”

Truthfully, she wanted to ask about Cosette’s mother and Cosette’s adoption, curiously as to what happened. Cosette was, technically, and orphan, but this probably wasn’t the right time to bing it up. Not after how today had gone. Éponine saw no reason to spoil it. On top of that, of course, was the understanding of not wanting to talk about parents, or the past, or the past tied with your parents.

So for now, Éponine didn’t say anything as she watched Cosette frown slightly, glancing at a picture of her and her dad in front of what looked to be their house. Did Cosette miss him terribly? She wondered what it was like to be missed, or to have someone to miss.

Azelma and Gavroche, of course, were a different story. They were pretty independent, sometimes off on their own in Paris for days on end. Her and her siblings had grown up never being missed and learning to miss no one.

She saw Cosette sigh and grab pajamas from her drawer.

“Do you want to do something? Watch a movie, maybe?” Éponine asked, not wanting to see Cosette looking so down. She’d never been good with words, so she substituted them with distractions.

Cosette’s mouth twitched as she climbed out of her dress. Then she smiled. Éponine always seemed to know how to save the day. “Yeah. Something funny, though.”

“No _Texas Chainsaw Massacre_ , then?”

Cosette rolled her eyes. “No. And I don’t understand how we wound up watching that. Jehan and I outnumbered you. _We_ wanted to watch _Enchanted_.”

Éponine shrugged, but Cosette could see her eyebrows arch, a sure sign she was hiding a smirk. “You choose the movie this time, then.”

“ _Enchanted_.”

Sighing, Éponine nodded and reached under her bed for the stack of DVDs they had combined, which left a mixture of horror and suspense movies with musicals and adventure ones. “As you wish, M’lady.”

“You’re such a drama queen.”

“Says the girl who had to sleep with the lights on for a whole week after we watched _The Woman in Black_.”

“Whatever, Éponine.”

The television having been placed on Éponine’s side of the room, Cosette rested on the wall next to Éponine as laid her head on her shoulder once she’d sat down and gotten herself situated. Éponine would enjoy the movie -- she was sure of it, and wasn’t let down when Éponine started laughing at the sight of Giselle all dressed up in New York City. In response, Cosette’s hand found Éponine’s hand and squeezed.

“Thank you for coming today. I had a lot of fun.”

“Yeah,” Éponine replied, looking down at their intertwined hands as if she was not quite sure not to make of it. Then she looked up at Cosette and half-smiled. “It was a blast.”

They settled down to watch the movie again, bare thighs touching, kicking each other every once in a while, and Éponine could feel every touch, her heart leaping out of her chest every time Cosette would give her hand a friendly squeeze.

_It’s only October_ , Éponine thought miserably as Cosette let out a loud laugh at the prince getting run over in Central Park, cutting his ballad short. _It’s going to be a long year._


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing really confirms a crush like the feeling of lethal jealousy in your stomach when you find out someone likes the same person you do.

For the rest of the weekend, Cosette’s forlorn mood dragged on. She was quiet on Sunday, and Éponine let her be, not entirely sure what to make of it; though Cosette was the one more inclined to show her feelings, never before had she seemed so down.

When Monday morning rolled around, Éponine thought that maybe she could convince Cosette to take the day off, and they could do something fun, but she thought better of it, thinking that perhaps it was a better idea that they both get out of that tiny room and go do something distracting, even if was go to their classes.

So Éponine ruffled Cosette’s hair playfully as she departed for class, and was pleased to see a small smile creep up on her roommate’s face in response.

She moseyed on into the classroom with a few minutes to spare before the official spot in class, and, glancing about the room, she decided to situate herself next to Marius.

Truth be told, she still got a little twinge of shame in the pit of her stomach when she thought about Saturday; though, to be fair, how the hell was she supposed to know about Marius’s parents? She wasn’t a mind reader. All the same, the twinge was still there. Maybe it was because of how she’d treated him the past few weeks due to the coffee incident. Maybe she was tired of holding a grudge.

Either way, he looked over at her as she sat down. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

Silence.

_Great_ , Éponine thought, _right. Great start._

“It was nice seeing you this weekend,” Marius said earnestly, and though he didn’t mean it to, it felt like a slap in the face. “I had no idea Enjolras was your RA. Poor guy,” he added, his silly grin aimed in her direction.

Silently thanking God that Marius was somehow better at keeping up a conversation, she volleyed back, “I had no idea that he’s your friend. Seems a lot harder than being my RA. I bet you knock over his coffee _all_ the time.”

“Wasn’t it _you_ who set off the fire alarms at three in the morning?”

Éponine bit her lip.

Marius smirked.

“It was an _accident_! I was making popcorn,” she said defensively, crossing her arms. But then she looked at his smug face and laughed. “So how was your weekend? After I, you know, crashed your little date with Enjolras,” she added with a laugh, though she was worried that maybe she was crossing into uncharted territory.

But surprisingly, Marius lit up as if she just told him she’d pay off his college tuition. “It was great, actually. After you left, I thought maybe I’d go to the library to get some reading done and I saw this really cute girl --”

“Ah,” Éponine replied, trying to lean back in her chair only to remember that she was in a lecture hall. She frowned. “I’m intrigued. What did she look like? Did you talk to her?”

He looked at her as if she’d asked if he knew who the twenty-sixth president of the United States was. “No.”

Éponine couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Typical Marius. Get excited over a girl you never talked to. He probably believed in fate and soul mates, too.

But, she had vowed to be nicer to him, so she indulged him. “Luckily for you, this is university. There are _lots_ of cute girls every where. Trust me,” she said, putting her hand gently on his forearm, “I would know.”

She tried not to think of Cosette, but to no avail. Her face was the only face Éponine could conjure up in her mind’s eye.

His smile exposed all of his teeth. “Should I trust you?”

“Give me some credit, my roommate trusts me invariably. Just, um, don’t ask me to microwave popcorn at three am.”

Marius rolled his eyes and Éponine slapped him on the arm playfully. He wasn’t _so_ bad. Maybe he had his head in the clouds a good portion of the time, but at least he had a sense of humor. At least he didn’t hold grudges, unlike Éponine herself. She kind of knew that the world would be a better place with more people like him in it than with people like her; she kind of preferred a world with non grudge holders who had their head in the clouds than a world with people like her in it.

The professor wound up never showing up to class, so after fifteen minutes, the students took their leave, Marius reminding everyone to bring the work that was due for this class to the next one, and the two of them slipped out together, talking as they walked through the halls of the building.

Though it had been warm that Saturday, this Monday morning in particular proved to be a rather chilly one, and Éponine zipped up her coat as her and Marius, who had to drop by and see Enjolras for something, made their way to Éponine’s dorm. Only, as they approached, there was a very familiar, petite person sitting on one of the benches near the building. Upon closer inspection, the girl had long blonde hair tucked into a beanie, a sketchbook in the her hand, and floral pants that Éponine knew she had seen several times before on the bed opposite hers.

“What’cha doin’ out in the cold, Cosette?” Éponine asked as she approached her, dragging Marius along with her. “Aren’t your fingers stiff?”

Cosette looked up, saw Éponine, and shook her head. Her eyes still looked sad. “Nope,” she replied, putting her sketch down. “It’s not that cold out, really.”

“You’ve lost it.”

“Have not. Anyway -- who’s your friend?” she asked, nodding her head towards Marius.

Éponine looked over her shoulder at her TA, then back at Cosette. Whoops. “Oh, yeah, sorry. Cosette, this is Marius, my TA, and, uh, Marius, this is Cosette, my roommate.”

Cosette stood up and smiled at Marius. “Hey. Nice to -- uh -- meet you. Are you okay?” she asked Marius, whose mouth was agape in shock, as if he’d never seen a girl in front of him before. “You might want to close your mouth before the birds make nests in them,” Cosette joked half heartedly.

Éponine gave her credit. Even when she was in a terrible mood, Cosette still managed to be polite and civil to other human being. That was a one of the many character traits Cosette had that Éponine could never master.

Marius snapped his jaw shut. “H--hi. It’s -- um -- good to meet you.” The poor kid was so distraught at the current situation that he looked as if he wanted to drop right there and then. In fact, Éponine thought as she watched her TA turn into a third grader, it might be best if he _did_ drop dead right there and then. It might save him the humiliation. Not that Cosette would do something so cruel; but Marius would probably beat himself up over this confrontation later.

The three of them stood there awkwardly, Cosette trying to exchange glances with Éponine as Marius searched for words to string together into a coherent sentence, but when he could not, she shrugged and picked up her things. “I should go. Our professor let us out to go sketch on campus, but we’re supposed to go back once we’re done and prove that we actually did something before we’re let off the hook, so. But I’ll see you after class,” she told Éponine, and then, nodding at Marius, she added, “It was really nice to meet you, Marius. Maybe I’ll see you around sometime.”

 

  *     *     *

 

“What the hell was _that_?” Éponine asked once her and Marius were both inside the dorm. “You looked as if a double decker bus was about to run you flat.”

At this remark, Marius shook himself out of his semi-catatonic state, blinking furiously and taking note of Éponine, who was pushing the button for the elevator.

“Éponine.”

“Marius.”

The doors of the elevator opened and they both walked in, but once the doors were shut, Marius took hold of both her shoulders.

“Marius,” Éponine said again, though more forcefully, trying to wiggle out from his grip. “What the _fuck_ \--”

“Éponine -- that was the girl.”

“ _What_ girl?”

“The girl from Saturday that I was telling you about. You -- and _her_ \-- you guys --”

Marius continued to babble as Éponine stared into his face, though she wasn’t really seeing him. Understanding what he meant, the realization rolled over her like a wave. Indeed, it was as if she’d swallowed several mouthfuls of seawater.

“Cosette -- _my_ roommate -- was the girl you saw,” she said flatly, the shame she was feeling from this morning being replaced with something far more dangerous. Apparently, seawater does that to a girl.

“Yes -- Éponine, this is _perfect_!”

Éponine would've very much like to rip his throat out at that very moment, but was very aware that she would not get away with the crime. “I’m not seeing what you’re seeing, clearly,” she responded dryly.

The doors of the elevator opened, and Marius talked and talked and talked, and Éponine half-heartedly listened while she negotiated throwing Marius from the window...though she’d probably have to ask Enjolras if that was against dorm policy.

“Wait,” she said, holding up a hand to stop him. “What did you just say?”

“I said that there’s a party on Saturday at mine and my roommate’s apartment...will you come? And bring Cosette with you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“How do I know you’re not some huge creep?” Éponine asked as they approached her dorm rom. She leaned on the door and crossed her arms. “What if she doesn’t like you? I’m not setting her up for that.”

She watched, pleased as his face fell slightly at the prospect of Cosette not returning his feelings. “Éponine --”

“I said, ‘No.’ I’ll see you later, Marius,” she said, not bothering to hide the contempt in her voice.

With that she slipped her card into the door and pushed herself in, leaving a lovestruck yet heartbroken Marius on the other side.

 

 

*    *     *

 

“ _Fuck_ no,” Éponine said out loud as she planted herself face first on her bed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck no.”

Nothing really ensures that you have a crush quite like finding out that someone else has a crush on the same person you have feelings for.

“Argghhhgh,” Éponine also said, picking up her pillow and beating herself over the head with it.

“Okay,” she said when she’d calmed down. “This is stupid. Feelings are stupid. She doesn’t like me, and she probably doesn’t like him after the episode outside. How could she even like him after seeing him for like a _min_ ute?” Éponine reasoned with herself, sitting up and sitting cross-legged.

She looked over to the pictures on her wall of her brother, her sister, and herself. She thought about what Azelma would do.

Ha. What would Azelma do. She’d tell Éponine to get Cosette before Marius could. That was Azelma’s way -- claim the prize before someone else does. Number one or nothing.

But Éponine knew that Cosette wasn’t a prize. She was a person.

“I taught you well,” Éponine said to the picture version of her younger sister, though she knew it couldn’t talk back, “and you may be a man-eater, but Cosette is no man. Hope you’re not too disappointed, ‘Zelma -- ah _shit_ ,” Éponine muttered under her breath as she heard the door open, announcing the arrival of Cosette.

Éponine turned to see Cosette giving her a curious look. “Were you... _talking_ to someone?”

“Aha -- no,” Éponine lied, but Cosette raised her eyebrows, unconvinced. “Okay, fine. I was studying out loud. It helps sometimes. For you know, remembering things.”

Instead of laughing or calling Éponine a freak, Cosette merely shook her head and put her book bag down next to her bed and sat down, looking at her knees.

Éponine brushed the fury and raging jealousy she had aside and went to go sit next to Cosette.

“You okay?” she asked, trying to meet Cosette’s eye. “You’ve seemed a little, um, down, this whole weekend.”

Cosette sighed and shrugged. “I’m fine.”

“Are not.”

“I don’t want to bug you.”

Éponine rolled her eyes. “Please, Cosette, you’re my friend. You’re not going to bother me if you’re upset. C’mon,” she said finally meeting Cosette’s gaze and understanding. “Talk. Is it your dad?”

Cosette sighed again. How could she even begin to tell Éponie that it was everything? She missed her dad, she worried about her dad, she didn’t realize how much she felt either of those things until she saw him.

“Yeah, I guess. It’s just -- I don’t want to lay it all out on you, you know? I guess I’m just homesick, is all,” she said, bringing her legs into her stomach and resting her head on her knees.

Éponine wrapped her thin arm around her shoulders; a blanket of comfort while she talked.

“He just means a lot to me. He, uh, mentioned that my mom died, yeah? I was eight. It was a car accident, and him and my mom were friends, so he adopted me. I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” she sniffed as Éponine squeezed her shoulders. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Do you want to talk more about it, or?”

“Um, I don’t know. I’ll get over it, I guess. It happens sometimes with my mom, like -- I miss her every day, but some days it’s harder to bear than usual. But I push through it, usually,” Cosette explained, feeling Éponine’s eyes on her. “It’s just strange being without him, I guess is what I’m saying.”

Without really thinking about it, Éponine rubbed her hand up and down Cosette’s back soothingly. She bit her lip, weighing her options on what she could do -- perhaps, what she should do.

She could suggest it, see what Cosette had to say, and then go from there.

“Well, I mean, you can always call your dad more often, right? I know it’s not the same as having him around, but, it’s still something,” Éponine suggested, her hand still running up and down Cosette’s back. “But maybe we should do stuff to distract ourselves -- you know, fun stuff -- not studying or watching movies in here.” She bit her lip again, peeling the skin off of it, but stopped herself, not wanting to bleed. “I don’t want this to sound, like, insensitive, but that -- _guy_ \-- you just met, Marius?”

Cosette picked up her head, and, thank God, she grinned. “You mean the guy who lost his ability to speak mid-conversation?”

“That would be the one. Okay -- this is _just_ an idea, but, um, he thinks you’re...dammit, he invited me and you -- mostly you -- to his party on Friday --”

“Do you want to go?” Cosette asked, furrowing her brow.

“No, I meant like, that’s something fun we could do. You know, _distracting_. Party. _Fun_. Leave the dorm. Get drunk. Make out with people we’ll regret in the morning...this was a terrible suggestion,” Éponine realized, withdrawing her hand from Cosette’s back, only to cover her mouth with it out of stress. “You’re getting all emotional and deep and I’m talking about getting drunk. Forget I ever mentioned it.”

But Cosette simply laughed and pulled Éponine’s hand away from her mouth. “No, no. Actually, that sounds like fun. The last party I went to was a high school party. And did you mention _I_ was specifically invited?” she asked shyly, looking to her roommate for confirmation.

“Aha,” Éponine simply replied, damning herself for even mentioning that in the first place. _That_ information could’ve been withheld.

“What? Am I not likable enough to warrant an exclusive invite?” Cosette said, feigning being offened and untucking her elbow so she could playfully shove it into Éponine’s ribs.

“Jesus Christ, your elbows are so goddamn bony, and _no_ , did I say that? You’re _too_ likable for you own good, actually,” Éponine said, trying not to turn red as the last sentence slipped out.

Cosette laughed and laid back on the bed. “Thanks, Éponine - -wait,” she said, her fingers curling around Éponine’s wrist as the latter got up to go back to her side of the room.

“Yeah?”

“Can you lay here with me -- just for a little while?”

The question was entirely innocent in itself. It was nothing more than a friendly request for comfort, but Éponine’s stomach still flipped at the sight of Cosette laying horizontally on her bed, the soles on her feet just resting on the floor underneath, her doe eyes unassuming.

She missed her parents, and that was all, Éponine told herself as she lay down next to Cosette, letting her hair spread across the bedspread. She could feel Cosette’s heat radiating off her body, and she smelled like vanilla and cinnamon, a combination of her perfume and the gum she liked to chew. Could Cosette tell what Éponine smelled like (cigarettes and black coffee, no doubt), or feel her body heat?

Probably not. This had nothing to do with anything else. It was friendly -- strictly friendly. Assuming anything else would be hopeful. It’d be foolish.

All the same, Cosette took Éponine’s hand in hers, their fingers intertwined, and it finally dawned on Éponine that, for once, in the most bittersweet way, she felt needed. She _was_ needed.

The thought of that nearly broke her heart.


	9. Chapter 9

“If you don’t hurry up, we will get to the part three hours after it’s already ended,” Cosette hissed, turning around to look at Éponine, who was a few paces behind her.

She was doing some sort of strange dance with her hands behind her back, her shirt riding up and she jumped up and down frantically.

“This isn’t my fault,” Éponine answered, jumping again. “My bra strap keeps falling down."

“So tighten it!”

“What do you think I’m trying to do? Did you think _this_ ,” she jumped again, “is some sort of new dance craze? Give me some credit, Cosette.”

Cosette crossed her arms. “Can you walk and do that? It’s freezing out here.”

“The building is literally _right_ _there_. Besides, it’s not like the thing starts at a certain ti -- got it,” Éponine said triumphantly, pulling her hands out of the back of her shirt and readjusting the bottom of it. “Yeah, like I said -- it’s that one over there.”

“Are you sure?”

Éponine shrugged. “That’s what Marius said -- _yes_ , I’m sure, I’ll lead the way.”

They walked to the building and got into the elevator with a few other kids, Éponine being sure to hit the third floor before the doors closed. As they went up, she was thankful for the invite, as it had taken Cosette’s mind off of her dad. She still had to rip Cosette from the phone earlier that night so they could leave for Marius’s apartment, but at least Cosette wasn't as forlorn as she had at the beginning of the week.

She’d been pretty excited about the party, too, picking out and outfit beforehand, though, to be fair, Cosette usually had everything planned ahead. It was Éponine who usually opened up her closet and pulled out the first thing she could see; tonight, of course, was no exception to that rule.

Éponine led the way to the apartment, and found it with ease. Just as Marius had said, it was the last door on the right, next to the window which overlooked the path her and Cosette had walked to minutes prior. It was also the only apartment on the floor with loud dance music coming from it, as if they were going to a club and not someone’s living space.

“Should we knock first?” Cosette asked as Éponine put her hand on the knob and turned it.

When it clicked open, Éponine shrugged as if to say, “Guess not.”

There were a number of people there, talking and dancing and drinking, but it wasn’t too packed. They stood in the living room as Cosette shut the door, and Éponine scanned around the room, trying to look for a face that wasn’t Marius - -actually, she swore she could’ve seen Enjolras walk into the corridor across from what must have been the kitchen, but it couldn’t have been; she was pretty sure Enjolras was allergic to loud music and anything that could possibly be considered as even _remotely_ fun.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t recognize any faces, but she did see Marius approaching them excitedly, a wide grin on his freckled face.

He surprised Éponine by hugging her, saying, “You showed up!” and she pushed him off and nodded, trying not to hate him too much and wondering why she thought this would be a brilliant idea in the first place.

“Um, okay, so, like I said the other day, Cosette, this is my TA, Marius Pontmercy,  Marius, my best friend, Cosette Fauchelevent.”

The two shook hands, looking at each other shyly. They kept looking at each other for a while like that. 

It was kind of the weirdest thing Éponine had ever laid eyes upon. It made her uncomfortable, and it also made her feel like she was going to strangle the life out of something, or someone. “I’m gonna go get some drinks. Or a lobotomy. Or launch myself out the wind -- okay, they aren’t listening,” she said as she backed away from them, rolling her eyes only because she knew it would keep her from crying.

 

*     *     *

She didn’t hear what Éponine said, but Cosette could feel the hole left by Éponnie's departure, and she turned around in time to see her go, and felt a twinge of guilt for ditching her friend (though, to be fair, Éponine had physically left the situation first. Cosette was the first to leave emotionally). When she could no longer see Éponine, she turned and looked to Marius, who was still smiling.

“It’s really nice to meet -- or see you again, I guess,” Cosette yelled over the music with a laugh.

“Yeah,” Marius answered, running a hand through his hair nervously. “Sorry for being so -- weird. I just realized I’d seen you somewhere before and...you’re really pretty,” he added, turning beat red as he realized exactly what he had said.

Only, Cosette was blushing at the compliment. She laughed nervously. “Thank you. That’s really sweet.”

They stood there silently for a minute or two, and Cosette got to size him up properly: tall, pale, freckled, with a wide mouth and a cute, innocent grin.

“What are you majoring in, again?” Marius asked suddenly, as if not knowing was a life or death situation.

“Art history. And you’re a...lawyer -- or, studying to be, at least.”

“Yeah. Pre-law.”

They nodded at each other, and Cosette bit her lip, thinking of something to respond with, but couldn’t. The last time she’d done this was in high school, but the girl she’d been with, Amy, had been loud and inquisitive and not at all nervous, and it put Cosette at ease. In fact, she remembered with a start, Amy reminded her a bit of Éponine -- though Éponine was less self-centered and a bit more pessimistic.

“Do you -- do you want to dance?” Marius asked, holding out his hand for her to take. “I’d be careful for Courfeyrac, though,” he added, pointing to the black haired boy who was jumping up and down wildly. “His dancing skills are a bit...”

“Enthusiastic?” supplied Cosette, slipping her hand into his.

He squeezed it tightly. His whole hand was a bit big for hers, but it was warm and comforting, Cosette decided, as he led her to the middle of the room to dance.

 *     *     *

Meanwhile, Éponine was watching the scene from afar, by the bookshelf, an eyebrow raised judgmentally. She saw Marius run his hand through his hair, watched them size each other up. Cosette laughed, and Éponine could practically hear it ringing in her eyes, though the music was too loud for it to be anything than just a memory repeating in her own mind. They looked like they were having fun, and it was bittersweet: sweet for Cosette, bitter for Éponine.

“Hey, Éponine,” came a quiet voice next to her that made her jump.

It was Jehan, their hair up in a bun, a loose sweater exposing one shoulder. She was surprised she hadn’t seen them when she first walked in.

“Cosette mentioned she was coming tonight. I don’t know why I didn’t think of them before -- Marius and Cosette, I mean. I guess they’re kind of cute, right?” they asked Éponine, tilting their head and they watched the two interacting.

“I once saw a squirrel fall out of a tree, and that was pretty cute -- I mean,” she doubled back when she realized Jehan could actually hear her. “Yeah, I suppose. Cute.”

“Are you here to chaperone?”

“Me? Oh, no. Just, uh, third wheeling it from a distance.”

Jehan smiled knowingly. “You look like a hawk circling its prey.”

“I’m standing in one spot. I've been static for ten minutes,” Éponine replied defensively, evading Jehan’s telling remark.

They shrugged nonchalantly. “Just saying -- oh, he asked her to dance, I think. That’s a good sign, right?” they asked, nudging Éponine in the ribs and pointing to Cosette and Marius, who were, indeed, dancing.

Éponine felt her stomach drop out off her butt. “Mmm, yeah. Do you want a drink? I need a drink,” she said, but Jehan shook their head, motioning to the one already in their hands, so she turned to go to the place she assumed to be the kitchen.

“Yeah,” she said, walking into the room which did turn out to be the kitchen, “I need a drink. Or five.”

Her stomach had not yet returned to her body, and her head was throbbing, like Enjolras had hit her over the head with one of those obscenely large textbooks he always seemed to be lugging around. She wasn’t sure what to feel, or how she felt at the moment -- hate? Jealousy?

She put a hand onto the island and put her head back. But they looked happy, she thought, and they were going to be happy, together -- damn, how could she ever be so _stupid_? Of course if she brought them together they be perfect for each other. It’s logical. She should have known. 

She should have --

And besides, Cosette wasn’t -- no, of course she wasn’t.

So Éponine couldn’t help but laugh at herself as she sat on one of the stools, glaring at the refrigerator across the room. And that was when a dark-haired man stumbled on in. At first, he did not notice Eponine, as he went straight to the keg to fill his cup up, but when he turned, he saw her, glaring.

“Has the fridge offended you in some way?” he asked, looking at Éponine and grinning a lopsided, silly grin. He was short and stocky and muscular looking. As least, under his jacket, his arms looked big. A beanie sat atop a thick mass of curls...he looked familiar, but Éponine couldn’t place him.

She couldn’t help but smile back at him, meeting his eyes, noticing a glint of mischief in them -- something she used to have in herself, and something, since college, she had started seeing again and again when she looked in the mirror.

“‘Cause I’ll fight it for your honor, if you want,” said the boy, walking up to the fridge and holding up his large fists. “How dare you, kitchen appliance. How dare you dishonor Lady -- ?”

Éponine laughed and got up. “Éponine, but --” she grabbed the boy’s arm and turned him away from the fridge. “I don’t need a man to fight for me.”

The boy grabbed his cup and lifted it. “Ah! A feminist. You should talk to -- have you met Enjolras? Blonde hair, stick up his -- wait,” he stopped, peering at her, realization dawning on his face. “I know you.”

Éponine took another look at him, realizing he _was_ familiar. His jab at Enjolras had jolted her memory. Then it clicked. “You’re Grantaire.”

The boy called Grantaire grinned and took a sip from his cup. “I am. You can just call me ‘R’ if you want. And you’re -- you’re -- you’re that girl! From the hall meeting! You laughed at my jokes!”

Éponine nodded. “That was me, yeah. Éponine Thénardier.”

“I like you. I _knew_ I liked you from the start. So what are you doing here all by yourself, Éponine?”

She shrugged, but her eyes wandered to the entryway to the kitchen from the living room, where, no doubt, Cosette was still dancing with Marius.

Grantaire followed her gaze with his own. “Let me guess -- some sort of unrequited love?” He sounded half amused, and half sad, like he had seen this scenario all too often before, glancing out at the entryway, lost in a train of thought. He came to after a moment, grinning again.

“Well, Éponine, I know exactly how to cure this,” said Grantaire, turning back to the fridge and grabbing a beer.

Éponine watched, wanting to refuse, but saying nothing, as she also wanted to get piss drunk and hopefully pass out. She used to do that every once and a while -- drink for the sole purpose of blacking out. She’d quit it completely around the time she started applying for college, only drinking at parties, and just enough so that she started feeling a buzz.

“What’s with the camera?” she asked to his turned back. She’d noticed it hanging around his neck, and not one of the electric ones either. It was an older looking film camera.

Grantaire shrugged. “Photography class.” He turned back around, walked over to where Éponine was waiting, and handed her a beer. His hands shaking slightly.

“Are you drunk?” she asked him, looking at him more carefully than before.

“Well,” Grantaire started. “ _Tech_ nically, yeah. But not as drunk as I usually am.”

“Not drunk enough to impersonate your friend?”

“Oh no -- I can _always_ impersonate him. It’s very easy, man like that. Stiff,” he added, looking down at his cup, “upright -- up _tight_.” Grantaire looked up at her then, and motioned with his head to the entryway. “You wanna get a room?” He asked, but before she could open her mouth to answer, he continued, “I just mean -- you look like you have a lot on your mind -- talk. Do you want to talk?”

Éponine narrowed her eyes, but before she could tell him to fuck off -- like, really? She thought she’s found a _legitimate_ friend -- Grantaire’s blue eyes widened in anxiety.

“No, no -- I meant -- you just look like you have a lot on your mind, is all,” Grantaire said, looking at Éponine earnestly. “I would never -- we could go out in the hallway, if you want? Sorry,” he said apologetically to Éponine. “I’m not very good at this sympathy thing --”

“I don’t want your sympathy,” Éponine replied shortly, turning on her heel, ready to leave the party for good, but she stopped when he spoke again.

“Fine, not _sympathy_ \-- this friendly thing. We don’t have to get a room, specifically -- do you smoke?” he asked, taking out a pack of cigarettes. “We can go out for a smoke.”

Éponine stared at him for what seemed like a lifetime. Her eyes were cold, unimpressed. But she looked at his helpless facial expression to his cigarettes, and sighed.

“Yeah, fine -- you make _one_ move, though,” she warned, walking over to him and poking him roughly in the chest, “and I rip your balls off and shove them down your throat.”

Grantaire’s mouth twitched. “Not something you have to worry about, Éponine.” He grabbed her hand and led her out of the kitchen and out of the apartment.

“Nicotine addicts needing their fix!” he yelled over the music, bumping into people along the way as Éponine followed, laughing. His hand was warm -- _almost_ comforting. It felt nice to trust someone like this. Dangerous, maybe, but nice.

They stopped in the hallway. The moon was high in the sky, flooding the window next to the apartment door with a dim light. Grantaire dropped her hand and took a cigarette out of his carton, and handed one to her.

Éponine took it, holding it in between her index and middle finger as he shook another one out for himself.

He felt in his pockets for a lighter, but Éponine was quicker. She pulled hers out -- this one was purple, a little scratched. “I’ve got it,” she told him, and his eyebrows raised.

“You’re not gonna yell at me about smoking in the hallway?”

“Were you expecting me to want to go _outside_ \-- hold out your cigarette, for God’s sake,” she replied, grinning.

He grinned back as she lit his, then her own. He took one, long drag, blew the smoke out, exhaling deeply. “So,” he started as she took her second drag. “Talk.”

“‘bout what?”

“Your troubles -- I don’t know -- shit -- I left our beers inside --”

“Hold up, tiger. Let’s smoke for now.” She held her arm out to stop him from going back inside. “Are you always drunk?”

“I thought we were talking about _you_.”

“Not right now,” Éponine said, shrugging. “You first.”

Grantaire sighed. “Of _course_ not -- just, you know on the weekends. Sometimes on week days, you know, this is _university_ , for Chrissake’s. And I do drink a lot, when I do, I suppose.”

“ _Tech_ nically it isn’t the weekend yet,” countered Éponine, exhaling and grinning.

“It’s Friday night, ‘Ponine -- what?” he said when she laughed.

“Oh -- no,” Éponine stuttered, feeling the tiniest bit guilty for laughing at her new friend. “I wasn’t laughing at you -- I just, my sister and brother used to call me that -- I don’t really want to talk about it,” she informed him before he could ask. “Why do you drink so much?”

Grantaire flicked his cigarette, brooding a bit. “Dunno. You done?” He asked her, seeing she was done with her cigarette, plucking it out of her hands, and throwing both their buds out the window. He hesitated before he threw, turning to Éponine to see if she would protest, but she didn’t.

They fell silent for a minute as Grantaire shut the window and walked back to the door. They both slid to the floor, sitting across from one another. Grantaire’s legs were spread out. Eponine’s were hugged in close to her chest.

“I used to drink a lot -- like, a _lot_ ,” Éponine told Grantaire softly. She recalled those nights a bit bitterly -- she seemed to remember everything that happened while she was drunk, despite the sheer amount she did drink.

Grantaire drummed his legs on the floor. “What made you stop?”

Blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “Um, well, a few months before we all had to start applying for uni -- my guidance counselor told me I had a chance at getting into somewhere.” She didn’t continue right after, and Grantaire wondered if that’s all she would say until she spoke again.

“I kind of realized that I had a shot of getting out of where I lived, because, well -- it wasn’t the best of places, let’s just say.” Eponine kept talking, mostly because Grantaire kept listening, without a sign of judgement. He was holding his camera, playing with the lens, but he was still looking at her attentively. “And I have my siblings, you know? And it’s not the best situation, so I figured, if I came here, I could get myself an education, a job, get them out of my parent’s place, and get --”

“A new start?” Grantaire asked. It was the first interruption he’d made in the conversation, and he realized this. “Sorry,” he added. “I didn’t mean to --”

Éponine sighed. “You’re right, I suppose.”

There was a pregnant pause, where Éponine stretched her legs out so that they touched Grantaire’s. It felt intimate, but not in a romantic way. It seemed more like a friendly understanding.

“I don’t know how I got in here, personally -- I barely remember filling out applications -- but I did it, and -- I’m here,” Grantaire said, looking at their legs. “I have a younger sister -- she’s sixteen -- well, she’ll be seventeen in a few months,” he added, frowning.

“Same as my sister. My brother turned ten over the summer.”

“Pain-in-the-asses, right?” Grantaire kicked her leg lightly, chuckling.

“Yeah. But I love them, or else I wouldn’t be here...well, maybe I would be, for myself. They’re just a big part of it.”

“And that wouldn’t be a bad thing,” Grantaire replied, meeting her eye. “If you were here just for yourself. It’s okay being selfish sometimes, and -- woah,” he stopped abruptly. He looked taken aback, as if he just realized what he had said. “That was _very_ deep and sort of insightful -- which means I am sobering up -- I’m going to get a drink. Do you want to come back inside, or --?”

“No,” Éponine declined, thinking of Marius and Cosette dancing, their foreheads pressing together and laughing. Éponine had to avert her eyes on the way out to the hallway. No way was she going back in there.

“Do you want a beer? I think there’s other stuff in the fridge, too, if you want --”

“A beer is fine,” Éponine responded, resting her head back on the wall and closing her eyes. The imagine of Marius and Cosette was seared into her mind.

“God,” she said quietly, rubbing her temples. “How fucked up do you have to be to fall for you roommate, and then set her up with the guy _she’s_ completely fallen for? Well,” she responded in a deeper, more somber voice, “apparently very fucked up.”

Then she started to laugh. She laughed because the whole situation seemed ridiculous -- her, falling for Cosette so quickly, and Cosette and Marius, for falling for each other even quicker -- her being dumb enough to set them up, for letting Cosette pull her to this dumb thing.

Grantaire was pretty nice, though.

She was still in a deep conversation with herself when Grantaire came back outside. She didn’t notice him, though. Being too busy switching back and forth between voices, she hadn’t heard the creek of the door.

“Are you talking to yourself?” Grantaire asked her, half-laughing. He stopped himself, though, “Wait,” he said, setting the two beers down, holding the door open with his foot. “Com’ere.”

“Why?”

“I wanna see who your unrequited love is -- no one’s gonna see, ‘Ponine,” he assured her, holding out his hand. “We’re a self-involved bunch.”

Éponine sighed, taking his hand, allowing him to pull her up.

Her stomach gave her the same jolt it had at the beginning of the night, when she officially set the two up. They were sitting on the couch, talking, and Cosette’s head was resting lightly on Marius’s head, and though she couldn’t be completely sure, she thought she saw their hands intertwined. They looked cozy and content.

It was all too much.

It was a dagger in her.

She felt Grantaire’s gaze follow hers to the couch, where the lovebirds were.

“Holy shit,” Grantaire said quietly in her ear. “ _Marius_? You poor girl, he’s only been talking about _that_ girl non-stop for the past week --”

Éponine’s stomach flipped. At the same time, though, she wanted to laugh. She thought about their first meeting, when Marius knocked over her coffee. She’d never thought...never _dreamed_... _him_? _Really_?

“Not _him_ ,” she said miserably, continuing to stare at Cosette.

Grantaire picked up on this faster than she expected. She’d assumed he would think she was talking about the boy with the glasses standing behind the couch. He didn’t think that at all, because he let out a low whistle, then left the door frame to grab his beer and sit back on his side of the hallway.

Éponine grabbed her beer and sat back down, letting the apartment door swing shut. She chugged half the beer in under a minute.

“Was it a bad idea to give you that?” he asked, eyeing the beer.

She held the bottle protectively. “I’m fine.”

“So. The girl.”

“Yes.”

“Cosette -- the guy Marius has been talking about for the past five days?”

“Yes.”

Grantaire looked up at the ceiling, confused. “Didn’t you come here with her? Didn’t you _introduce_ the two of them?”

“Do we need to replay all the dumb choices I’ve made in the past week?” Éponine snapped. She drank the rest of the beer, then put the bottle aside. “She just -- she’s been upset for the past couple of days, so I figured getting out would do us some good, and Marius liked her, and she was kind of excited that he did, and I knew him, and -- I _knew_ I was jealous, I knew it, I could feel it -- but -- ugh.” She hung her head and chewed on her lip.

After a moment, she met Grantaire’s eye and added gravely, “She’s my roommate.”

“Jesus,” he said, raising his bottle to salute her. He took a drink. After wiping his mouth, he added, “My deepest sympathies. I know -- I get it. Kind of. Only my -- he’s not my roommate.”

Éponine nodded, not sure what to say. “Ah.”

“He’s actually -- if I’m not mistaken -- your RA.”

Eponine’s eyes widened in shock. “ _Enjolras?_ Enjolras,” she said when he nodded. “The guy you impersonated? _That_ Enjolras? The one you said has had a stick up his ass --”

“Well, it’s _true_ ,” Grantaire replied. He was smiling unexpectedly. He looked as if he found this particular quality endearing, as opposed to really fucking annoying. “I just -- I really -- I don’t know. I’m not a big believer in anything, except alcohol --”

“You _believe_ in _alcohol_ \--”

“ _You’re_ in love with your roommate.”

A pause. Then --

“Continue,” Eponine said dryly.

Grinning in response, he went on, “But he just has so much hope in everything -- okay, maybe not _every_ thing -- I can’t really explain it, I’m just drawn to him --”

“The moth to the flame.”

The both of them stared sadly at the floor for a couple of moments, lost in the tragedies of unrequited love.

“Have you ever seen what happens if a moth gets too close to a flame?” Grantaire said miserably.

They grew quiet again. Éponine didn’t mind, though. Their pauses were nice -- or, comfortable, at least. Nothing was awkward. She didn’t feel pressured to speak until she wanted to. She could just sit on the floor, tugging on the sleeve of her jacket, while Grantaire sat across from her, drumming in legs on the hallways floor.

She recalled a night, about three years ago, just before her 16th birthday. She’s been sitting somewhat like this -- across from someone, though it had been a room -- a bedroom, to be exact.

The person who had been sitting across from her was named Montpanarsse. He was a dangerous, yet charming boy with the tiniest glint of mischief in his eye. He had tattoos snaking up his arms and across the top of his chest, so when he sported v-necks you got a teaser of his ink. He wore skinny jeans, a leather jacket, and a wicked grin on his face.

She knew him from her father. He’d come to work for him when he was fourteen. Éponine was twelve, and they’d hit it off and became good friends. Partners in crime. He liked to make her laugh and teach her how to fight and spit. That was back when he wasn’t so dangerous, and when he didn’t have any tattoos.

Time went by, slowly but still all at once. They were older. He was meaner and she was tougher. He got her to start smoking, and they kissed in her dad’s garage when she was fourteen and he was sixteen -- her first kiss. It was smokey and tobacco-flavored. Éponine hadn’t minded, though. He was the person she fled to when her dad kicked her out. He was the one she bared her bruises and cuts to. He was the one who understood.

So they were friends, for a while, until they weren’t anymore. But he wasn’t her first -- no, he wasn’t. He could’ve been -- she was 15, but he wasn’t. Her first was a red headed girl who didn’t tell Éponine her name, and it was at a party Montparnasse had brought her to.

The night she told him about the girl was the night she was recalling now while sitting on the hallway floor of some random college’s kid’s apartment, sharing life stories with a stranger.

Her dad had thrown her out again, right after he’d thrown out Gavroche.

“He’s seven!” she’d cried to her dad. “You can’t just --”

“If you’re gonna defend that shit,” her dad had said curtly, “then get the hell out.”

“But da --”

He’d slapped her. Hard. She glared at him, her eyes filling with tears and her cheek burning.

She should’ve known better. She should’ve kept her mouth shut. When it came to her parents, though, she was never able to control herself, especially when they went around kicking her siblings around -- or out.

“I’ve had enough of your mouth. Get out. did you hear me?” her dad barked when she didn’t move. “Out!”

She ran passed him to her room and locked the door. Throwing the window open, she grabbed her backpack, stuffed some extra clothes into it for the morning, and climbed out the window.

Montpanarsse didn’t live that far away, and, despite the darkness, Éponine wasn’t afraid. The unknown happened to be a lot less frightening to her than the things she did know.

He’d taken her in, of course, as he always did. His mom was always working, and his dad had left them flat years ago.

So they’d been sitting in his cupboard of a room, which held the squeakiest mattress known to man. She’d slept on it a few times, safe in Montpanarsse’s strong, warm arms. This night in question, she’d been sitting on it, and he was in his desk chair.

“‘Panarsse,” she said softly. They were smoking, as usual, with the window opened. His profile was clear in the moonlight. He had long, dark hair -- not much different than her new friend Grantaire. But Montpanarsse had dark, deadly eyes that shone only when he had a bad idea or wanted something. She’d never recalled his eyes ever being that dark as a kid, coming to the conclusion they’d gotten darker and deader with each passing year.

She only knew that because she saw the same thing happening to her each time she glanced at herself in the mirror.

“Yeah, ‘Ponine?” he asked, equally as softly. He could be mean, but he could be kind.

“I -- the party last Saturday.”

“Yeah? Wha’ about it?”

“I --” she stopped and put her cigarette out in the ashtray at her feet. “I had sex.”

He didn’t speak for a moment. Then he barked out a laugh so loud that Eponine jumped up. He laughed at her jump.

“Our lil’ ‘Ponine, no longer a virgin --”

“I don’ believe in virginity,” she said loftily, regaining her composure and sitting back down. “It’ sexist bullshit.”

Montpanarsse grinned. “Such big words from such a smar’ girl. So,” he had said, sitting back in his chair easily. “Who’s the lucky man?”

Éponine wondered why he wasn’t angry. She figured he would be. Him and her dad were always joking about how the two of them were gonna date, get married. It was one of those assumed things, though she’d never really had a crush on him. She used to admire him and appreciate his company. Kissing him was out of mere curiosity and experimentation. She’d never really had plans to marry anybody, let alone him, until her dad brought it up in passing, half-jokingly.

“It wasn’ a _boy_ ,” she said quickly, before she could lose her nerve.

It took Montpanarsse a moment to understand. His grin stayed on his face for a few seconds, but then it sort of melted away as he sat forward, then leaned in close to her.

“It was a _girl_?”

“Yeah.”

Montpanarsse laughed again. “Jesus, ‘Ponine -- what was her name? Maybe I know her -- maybe I did her, too.” He chuckled, like it was funny.

To Éponine, it was not funny.

“I don’ know.”

“You don’ know ‘er name!” he’d gotten up from his chair to put out his cigarette and sit next to her. “Funny girl, you are, ‘Ponine.”

They’d stayed silent for maybe a quarter of an hour. Éponine was looking at her sneakers. She’s drawn on them a few weeks prior to that night. Doodles and lyrics from songs she liked. Feeling Montpanarsse’s gaze on her simply made her look harder, as if she was willing her shoes to wipe themselves clean.

“Remember when we kissed, ‘Ponine?” he asked, trying to make his tone sound soft. To Éponine, it sounded eager. Not at all soft.

She nodded, her stomach knotting. She knew where this was going.

“I do.”

“Seems like forever ago -- but it wasn’, was it?”

“Just over a year, I think.”

“Yeah.”

Éponine dared herself not to flinch as Montpanarsse reached out and played with a strand of her hair. She knew what he was getting at -- he was her first kiss, he should’ve been her first. In that moment, she missed the old Montpanarsse more than anything. She missed the boy who taught her how to skip stones in the water, and the boy who taught her how to spit. She didn’t like this new boy -- almost a man. She regretted telling him about that Saturday.

But deep down, she knew. She knew it was going to come to this, no matter how hard she willed it not to. Everyone expected it. And in a way, she kind of wanted it. She could not resist the glint in his eye, or the stale cigarette smell he gave off. She couldn’t resist the tattoos or the leather jacket. He was, after all, dangerous, but disarmingly charming. She couldn’t help herself. Maybe she didn’t love him like that, but he was magnetic.

He was the flame, and she was the moth.

So she did not protest when he kissed her again. It was rougher than the first time, in her dad’s garage, but Éponine’s lips were cracked and dry as ever, and he still smelled like cigarettes.

And she did not protest when he laid her down and climbed on top of her, unbuttoning her shirt. She did not protest when he went inside her. She simply clutched his back and made appreciative voices.

It was rough and nothing like she expected. It was different than how it had been with that nameless girl -- rougher, even. She would count several bruises on her thighs alone when she’d leave Montparnasse’s the next day.

When he was done, he didn’t say much. He simply rolled off her and dropped off to sleep, leaving Éponine alert and awake, staring a the ceiling.

She hadn’t been upset -- not really. Just tired. So, so tired.

She decided then that she would not be the moth that got too close to the flame. In Montpanarsse’s mind, she was the moth to his flame. Maybe, though, it didn’t have to be that way. Maybe she could be the attractor, as opposed to the attracted. Maybe she could refuse to burn. No matter how resigned she was to a lifetime of nights with Montpanarsse, or resigned to the fact that, if she ever slept here again, she would have to sleep with him, she could still hold a flickering flame.

Her biggest mistake was forgetting that she couldn’t fight fire with fire.

*     *     *

She came out of her reverie when she heard the “click” of a camera. Looking over at Grantaire, who held the source of the noise, she frowned.

“Sorry,” said Grantaire apologetically. “People just make interesting faces when they’re thinking.”

“Oh,” Éponine said quietly, eyeing the camera. Could Grantaire could see her thoughts in the photo? Could a photo have those kind of powers?. “I was thinking about back home -- you remind me of someone -- kind of. You’re much better, though.”

“We,, thanks, I guess,” Grantaire replied, shutting his camera off after examining his most recent photo.

“You’re welcome.”

“So why do you like her?”

This question caught Éponine off guard. “Who?” she asked quizzically.

“Cosette, of course,” replied Grantaire, slightly amused by her response.

She was tempted to tell him it was none of his damn business, but she’d already told him so much, she could trust him.

“I dunno,” she said, scratching the back of her neck nervously. 

Grantaire let out a laugh. “Yeah, you do.”

“Ugh, okay, look. It’s like -- yeah she’s really, really unbelievably pretty, okay. And her face lights up when she smiles or laughs and her nose and eyes crinkle up and it’s just really cute, and even though she says she doesn’t tan she’s got these light sprinkles of freckles on her shoulder,” Éponine said, smiling in spite of herself. “She walks around without shoes, or socks...like, all the time. And she’s...she’s so _good_. Not nice, but...kind. And brave -- she left everything she knew to come here --”

“So did you,” pointed out Grantaire sagely.

Eponine frowned. “Yeah, but my life wasn’t great. Hers was...a lot better in comparison.”

Grantaire shrugged. “So? People’s lives aren’t perfect -- okay, we won’t argue about this,” he said, seeing the look on Éponine’s face. “Continue.”

“She’s...she has a gentle heart,” Éponine said, struggling to find words to explain. “She’s...until you get to know her, it’s hard to understand...she’s thoughtful and creative...she’s a good person.”

Éponine looked down at her lap. “I’ve never known a good person. Not really, anyway.”

“You’re a good person,” Grantaire said quietly, gently kicking one of her legs.

She looked up, defensive. “You don’t even _know_ me.”

Grantaire shrugged again. “Well, you brought her here and introduced her to Marius, despite the fact that you like her --”

“Any decent person would’ve done that --”

“Debatable,” Grantaire dismissed with a wave of his hand. “Some people wouldn’t have. Plus, you didn’t just send her on her merry way. You showed up here --”

“It wasn’t for a _noble_ reason.”

“Maybe not -- but what are you in uni for?”

They were going back and forth now, glaring at each other. Grantaire was frustrated that Éponine couldn’t see what seemed to him to be clear as day. Éponine was frustrated because she didn’t want Grantaire to keep telling her things she didn’t believe.

“To better my future,” Éponine replied after a pause, refusing to meet Grantaire’s eyes.

“Don’t act like you didn’t bring your siblings into this an hour ago. And you don’t have to believe me, and I’m not saying Cosette isn’t a good person. I’m just saying that _you_ are. Sure, you undoubtably have flaws, and if Cosette and Marius get together, you’ll probably be a little bitter, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t good at heart.”

Éponine still wasn’t looking at him, but he was looking at her, a troubled look on his face.

“I’m gonna go back inside,” Grantaire finally said after waiting a few minutes for Éponine to respond. He got up, walked over to her, and picked up her beer bottle.

“You can come back in if you want to, but if I pissed you off and you never want to see me again, that’s okay, too,” he added before he opened the door. He wasn’t surprised when she still didn’t answer him, because he wasn’t expecting one.

Instead, he sighed as he pushed open the door, pausing only to add, “You’re a good friend, Éponine, and Cosette’s lucky to have you. Don’t be too hard on yourself, okay?”

Then he was gone, disappearing back into the party, and Éponine was left all alone in the darkness again.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marius likes Cosette. Cosette likes Marius. Éponine likes Cosette, and Grantaire likes his coffee a little too strong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to get up! I had some personal stuff happened in the past few weeks that distracted me a bit from writing. Thank you all for being so patient! Enjoy :)

“Thank you, thank you, _thank_ you!” Cosette said as the two girls left the party. She threw her arms around Éponine, whose body stiffened slightly under her touch. “You were right -- we did need to get out of the dorm. And Marius is so cute and funny -- though he’s a bad dancer, but, that’s okay.”

“Whatever,” Éponine replied, shoving her hands into her pockets. She would’ve left a while ago, perhaps when Grantaire rejoined the party, leaving her in the hallway, but she didn’t want Cosette to have to walk back by herself in the dark, especially if she’d been drinking. So she stayed, chain smoking until she was out of cigarettes. Then she went back inside the apartment, where, to her relief, Cosette had been looking for her, very much sober, but very tired and ready to go home.

Cosette rolled her eyes and looped her arm through Éponine’s. “ _Whatever_ ," she repeated, mocking Éponine's tone. "Really? Fine, then,” she said when Éponine didn’t respond, “who was that guy you went outside with?”

The thought of Grantaire, for some reason, made Éponine smile. “Grantaire, remember, from the first night here?”

Cosette thought a moment, then laughed. “Yes, I remember. What did you guys do?” she asked playfully, bumping her hip with Éponine’s.

“We smoked cigarettes, drank, and complained about our shitty lives.”

“Romantic.”

“For two people who weren’t trying at romance, I suppose you’d be right -- and when did you get so sarcastic?”

Cosette shrugged. “You two looked cute, is all. Plus, it’d be cool to go on a double date -- if Marius winds up asking me out, anyway.” At this, she looked to Éponine questioningly. “Do you think he will?”

“Okay,” Éponine said, taking a deep breath. “One. Grantaire is not my type. Two, of course he -- Marius -- will. Who wouldn’t want to ask you out?” she added, trying to smile for Cosette’s sake.

Cosette merely laughed. “I can name a few people who wouldn’t.”

“I can’t,” Éponine responded in a serious tone, which made Cosette turn to look to her.

“You’re actually the best, you know?” she asked Éponine, tightening her arm around her friend and examining her carefully, deciding whether or not to do what she was thinking of doing.

To Éponine’s total surprise (and dismay), Cosette leaned forward and kissed Éponine softly on the cheek, which made Éponine’s pulse spike to an unbearably dangerous level.

“I love you, Éponine,” Cosette said pleasantly, and, taking Éponine’s red cheeks as a reaction to the weather, she added, “Your cheeks are freezing.”

“Y-yeah,” Éponine managed to stammer back. “But so is your nose.”

“See what I mean?” Cosette responded, shaking Éponine’s arm lightly. “You’re the best. Ridiculous, but the best. And I love you for it.”

Éponine didn’t have the heart to say it back. If she did, she would mean something totally different than what Cosette was talking about.

So instead of breaking her own heart, Éponine kept her mouth shut, choosing to not respond to Cosette at all.

 

 *     *     *

 

The next time she saw Marius, was, of course, in class. He arrived five minutes after she did, and, though she prayed he wouldn’t, he took a seat next to her.

He was all smiles, reminding her vaguely of a small child who’d just been give a lollipop. 

“Éponine,” was all he said when he sat, looking at her for a long time before speaking. 

He shrugged off his jacket, revealing a green button-up that was, of course, missing a button. Was he aware of the missing button, or simply incapable of sewing it back onto his shirt? Éponine had to stop herself from wondering if Cosette would wind up, one day, sewing buttons back on shirts for him.

She opened her notebook roughly, tossing it on the desk in front of her, and responded, “That’s my name.”

Marius ran both hands through his hair, and Éponine could hear his feet tapping on the ground next to her. She wondered if Cosette would date him if his feet managed to...disappear.

Probably. It certainly would be an improvement.

“Thank you,” Marius said, not noticing the look of pure venom Éponine was giving him.

She had to give him some credit, at least. He was one of those people who never took note of other people’s unkindness. Which meant she didn’t have to strain herself trying to wipe off the facial expressions she sent his way. Anyone would’ve noticed and taken offense, or gotten defensive. Or they would just back down.

But not Marius. Oh, no. He was a little trooper, he was.

“I really appreciate you setting Cosette and me up,” he continued, excited, but sincere. “We really hit it off at the part --”

“I know,” Éponine snapped back irritably. The one downside to someone like Marius was that, even if they didn’t realize how rude you were being, you still felt so fucking bad for being that way. “She mentioned it to me.”

This, of course, was the wrong thing to say. Before she could stop it, the words were out of her mouth, hanging in the air until Marius snatched them and ate them up, his grin growing wider, which did not seem possible to Éponine, but, there it was.

“Thank God,” he responded, rubbing his hands together nervously. “I wanted to ask her out, but wasn’t sure -- but now that I know -- is that okay, Éponine?”

_It is most certainly not okay,_ Éponine thought sourly, the words on the tip of her tongue before she paused to think. He was only asking because he didn’t want to make it awkward.

Cosette was her roommate. Marius was her RA. Things could get tricky.

_Besides_ , she realized miserably, _I already brought them this far, why would I decide to bow out now? I don’t half-ass anything. Even if it means ruining my life._

She gave Marius a large fake-smile, and said, in the most cheerful voice she could muster, “Of _course_ , Marius. That’s _fine_ with me.”

Marius patted her shoulder enthusiastically, talking about how he had to think of a clever way to ask Cosette, which was the perfect time for Éponine to put her head on her desk and pretend she was a thousand miles away.

*     *     *

Grantaire, on the other hand, Éponine did not see until the Wednesday after the party. She didn’t plan on meeting him or anything; seeing him was just happenstance, as she had to go to the library for a paper she, caught in the depths of college romance and heartbreak, nearly forgot to do.

Éponine had not, until that day, been to the school’s library before, and, finding that the library was more than one floor, she had to go through every level until she figured out where the book she was looking for would be. She could’ve asked, of course, but she didn’t really feel like working on her paper, and figured a thorough look-through at the library would waste a few hours. She spent more time than she should have meandering around, looking through old books that had collected dust, new ones with barely cracked spines, or ones with interesting titles. She happened to stumble upon the reference section and wound up lost in that for a while, reading up on women and gender studies and greek mythology. And then she found her way down to the third floor, where she saw Grantaire.

He was sitting at a table over by the window, which she only noticed as she was scaling the shelves -- she was actually looking for her book this time around. She turned the corner to the next row of books and saw him with his head hung, clearly going through or studying something on the table before him.

Deciding he would appreciate the interruption (Grantaire didn’t seem like the kind of person who would find studying enjoyable), Éponine slowly walked over to his table, being careful not to make a sound.

His back was to her, so she crept up behind him and snatched his coffee thermos that was sitting next to his notebook. He jumped, nearly knocking Éponine over, but she was able to balance the coffee and gain her footing before she fell.

“Morning,” she said jauntily when he turned around, surprised. “What’s new with --” she stopped briefly to take a sip of his coffee, all but spitting it back out as soon as it reached her lips.

She managed to swallow it, still making a face as Grantaire chuckled.

“Is there _alcohol_ in this?”

“Quiet -- I don’t want the librarians to hear.”

Éponine said down across from him, handing him back his thermos. “That’s gross.”

“Normally I just drink it black,” Grantaire replied, taking a sip of his own. “But I needed something else --”

“A shot of espresso would’ve done the trick.”

“I find espresso to be...what did you say? Oh, ‘gross’.”

He was grinning smugly, his eyes alive as he sat back in his chair, adjusting his beanie on his head. He looked the same as he did Friday night: tired, grungy-looking, with his baggy sweater and leather jacket, but still approachable. His jeans had holes in the knees and his shoes looked nearly worn out. The purple circles under his eyes were more pronounced under the harsh library light, but, all the same, he looked glad to see Éponine.

“You put _alcohol_ in your coffee.”

“I thought we’d already established that fact. Now are you going to yell at me about it, ‘cause if you are, I prefer you get to it.”

Éponine rolled her eyes. “I’m not Enjolras.”

There was a pause where Grantaire sat forward suddenly, putting all four legs of the chair on the floor, his eyes downcast. “And thank God for that,” he said in a forced sort of tone. “One Apollo is bad enough as it is.”

Éponine couldn’t tell if he was upset at the reference, or that she’d brought him up or mad at the jab. She turned red with slight embarrassment. She didn't want to hurt or offend him.

“I didn’t mean to --”

Grantaire drummed his fingers on the table, looking Éponine up and down curiously. Then he swiftly changed the subject.

“I thought you were mad at me?”

“ _I_ never said I was mad at you,” Éponine replied, crossing her arms over her chest. “ _You_ said that.”

Grantaire thought about it for a moment, still drumming his fingers. That was when Éponine noticed the paint underneath his fingernails. There were also bruises on his knuckles, which concerned her a tiny bit.

“Where’d you get those bruises?” Éponine asked worriedly, reaching out her hand to meet his. He snatched it back from her, though, and looked at his knuckles.

Then he smirked and shook his head.

“Can’t talk about it, ‘Ponine.”

Éponine glared at him for a second until she met his eye, and something clicked in her head.

“Fight club?” she asked, trying not to laugh. “There’s a fight club at this school?”

“I _told_ you I can’t talk about it, Éponine,” Grantaire scolded, but he looked approvingly at her. “But, yeah, okay. I box sometimes, and stuff.”

“‘ _And stuff_ ’,” Éponine scoffed, leaning forward to look again at his hands. “Are you a painter?”

“No. Well, yes. I’m taking a painting class,” he explained. “My major is Visual Arts.”

“Cosette is an art history major,” Éponine said, comparing her own chipped nails to Grantaire’s dirty ones.

“Speaking of -- how is the lovebird? Marius has been singing praises for the past four days or so -- _oh_ , okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Éponine tried. Then she stopped. Then she tried again. “I’m really happy for her. Like, I am. I’m glad I did what I did, but --”

“Still sucks to be you.”

Éponine shrugged. She’d been struggling with the whole thing for the past few days. She celebrated with Cosette, been happy for her when Marius formerly asked her out like he told Éponine he would. The two girls spent a little while trying to pick out what Cosette would wear for the date, and chose one of her cute sweaters paired with leggings and a pair of her boots.It’d be an appropriate outfit no matter what they were doing. But her stomach still twisted whenever she thought about the idea of them together -- Cosette and Marius, Marius and Cosette. Soon, they’d be inseparable -- _CosetteandMarius_ , _MariusandCosette_. Their names would be said together in one breath.

Then on the other hand, she got angry at herself for feeling as angry as she did. It seemed pointless, really. No matter how angry or happy she was about it wouldn’t change the situation. And Cosette was so damn _happy_. She kept flitting to and fro from one side of the room to another, room to room, place to place. Cosette was so, so, so excited, like Christmas had come twice in one year. She was all smiles and giggles and excited hand gestures. She was just so damn _happy_.

But that didn’t, couldn’t, stop Éponine from being a little bitter.

“I feel bad for feeling bad,” Éponine said, wringing her hands together. “I mean, like, I’m happy. For her. But I’m sad. For me. Does that make me --”

“A bad friend?” Grantaire asked, then shook his head. Éponine watched him carefully as he did this, wondering how he finished her sentences so easily. “I don’t think so.”

“What does it make me, then?”

Grantaire thought a minute, twirling the pencil he’d just picked up through his fingers. “It makes a you a person, Éponine.”

Éponine looked down at her lap, feeling Grantaire’s eyes on her. She felt strange, knowing this was probably the type of thing Cosette would say, but this wasn’t Cosette because Éponine could not tell Cosette about what was going on with her.

Grantaire was right; these feelings were just that -- feelings, and, whether Éponine wanted to admit it or not, she did have them. Because she was a person. Maybe she went all these years being distant and aloof, but it didn’t mean that things did not affect her. Even bugs with the toughest exoskeletons have their limits.

She finally sighed and dared herself to look up at Grantaire. He wasn’t very pretty, and those dark circles were so pronounced under the lights of the library, but his eyes were kind and his mouth was set into a soft, sympathetic grin; the kind that made Éponine relax instead of tense up to get defensive.

“Whatever, Grantaire,” she said, trying to shake off the rightness of the boy sitting across from her. “This person has to get a book for a paper on the impact women had on the music industry. So, I’ll see you,” she said, walking past him, letting her singers skim over his shoulder gently.

Before she could get away, she felt his hand tighten around her wrist, not enough to hurt, but enough to keep her from going anywhere.

Éponine turned to look Grantaire in the eye and shake him off, but he merely shook his head, and said, in a quiet tone, “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Éponine. God knows the rest of us are.”

Then he left his grip slip away from Éponine’s wrist, and, giving him one last somber glance, she turned her back on him and descended back into the shelves, determined, this time, to actually find her book.

 

*     *     *

 

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Cosette asked as soon as Éponine walked in the room. She was sitting at her desk, typing away on her keyboard, glancing every now and again at the textbook sitting in her lap. “I could’ve gone with you, you know,” she said off-handedly, not looking up from her lap. “I know the library a bit better than you do, anyway.”

In response, Éponine held it up as proof, and threw it onto her bed. She sat on Cosette’s mattress, crossing her legs and looking over Cosette’s shoulder to see what she was working on. “I found it okay. Plus, I know you had a paper to do, too,” she replied, and, after a moment, added, “I saw Grantaire at the library.”

Cosette turned in her chair to face Éponine. “Our Grantaire? Floor meeting Grantaire? Party Grantaire?”

“That would be the one.”

Cosette fluttered her eyelashes, grinning. “How _adorable_.”

“You’re so overdramatic, Cosette,” Éponine huffed, rolling her eyes. “Not everything is a love story.”

Cosette shrugged. “Suit yourself -- oh, hey -- that reminds me, look what Marius slipped through the door,” she said, holding her textbook open with one hand as she ruffled through the papers on her desk with the other. “Crap, my eyes are killing me, I can’t see anything -- “

“Maybe you need glasses.”

“I _have_ glasses. For reading. I always forget to use them, is all.”

“Seems very unlike you,” Éponine observed, crossing her arms over her chest and biting her lip.

Cosette shrugged again. “Well, we all have our faults -- found it. I thought I lost it. He hand-wrote a poem on this and must’ve slipped it under the door when we were both out! Is that cute?” she asked Éponine, who had one eyebrow raised. “I thought it was sweet.”

Éponine’s stomach tied into one knot, then two, and, had it been long enough, would’ve tied up a third time. To make up for it, she clenched her fists and kept them in her lap so Cosette wouldn’t see. “Which poem did he write?” Éponine asked, trying to let out a laugh. “‘ _Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’_?”

Rolling her eyes, Cosette gave Éponine a playful shove. “Okay. Marius might be cheesy, but he isn’t that bad.”

“You sure ‘bout that one, Cosette?”

“Shut up,” Cosette snapped, but she was smirking as she looked down at the paper. “It’s e.e. cummings? _I Carry Your Heart_ \--”

Éponine furrowed her brow, something in her memory jolting. “I know that poem.” 

“You do?” Cosette asked, looking from the paper with Marius’s penmanship to Éponine’s pensive look.

Raising her fists out of her lap and wringing her hands together, Éponine bit her lips, trying to place where she’d heard it before, but could not reach the memory. “Yeah -- I dunno why, but I know it. It goes something like -- um:

 

“ _ i carry your heart with me(i carry it in _

_ my heart)i am never without it(anywhere _

_ i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done _

_ by only me is your doing,my darling) _

_                                                       i fear _

_ no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want _

_ no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) _

_ and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant _

_ and whatever a sun will always sing is you _

_ here is the deepest secret nobody knows _

_ (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud _

_ and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows _

_ higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) _

_ and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart _

_i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)_ ”

 

The words that, on paper, flowed like water, sounded harsh on Éponine's ears when she recited them allowed. It was shakier at the beginning, but once she finished the first stanza, she found her footing, and the rest of the poem fell perfectly into place. She took a deep breath after finishing her recital, closing her eyes tight. When she opened them, Cosette was staring at her, her mouth slightly open.

"That was really -- Éponine," Cosette stuttered in disbelief, "that was fantastic."

Éponine looked down, picked at her own nails, and shrugged. "Thanks, I guess."

“How did you know all of the poem?” Cosette asked, and Éponine couldn’t help but take note of the the awe in her voice.

“It’s famous.”

“No, I mean, how did you know that whole thing? I had no idea you liked poetry so much.”

Éponine shrugged, daring herself not to blush under Cosette’s impressed stare. “I must’ve had to memorize it for school, or something. And, you know,” she continued, looking for something cleverer than what just spilled out of her mouth, “music is just poetry with a melody and music notes and stuff added to it -- if you can memorize a song, you can memorize a poem, you know? So, it’s not so different, really,” she added, bringing her right middle finger to her mouth and biting on the nail. “Either way, it’s a nice poem, I guess.”

Cosette raised her eyebrows. She was shocked to find that Éponine could recite a whole poem like that, considering that Éponine was the more forgetful of the two. “You _guess_? Well,” she said when Éponine didn’t respond, instead choosing to look up at the light fixture above. “I guess when you put it that way, with music and poetry, you’re right. I’m impressed. We’ve lived together for this long and I had no idea you were so well versed on great literature.”

“I’m not, really,” Éponine murmured, squirming in her seat a little bit. Cosette had been watching her for too long; her heart was beating fast and her nails were digging into the skin of her hand, and every moment that passed where she could still feel Cosette’s gaze was one of sheer agony. At this point, she might as well have plucked her own eyelashes out, because that, surely, would have been less painful.

“It’s a pretty poem, too, you know?” Éponine said after a minute or so, when her only options were to speak or reach forward and embrace Cosette. She glanced at her friend shyly from underneath her eyelashes, hoping that Cosette wouldn’t notice. “Like, wherever that person goes, or wherever you go, you’ll always have a little piece of them with you --”

“And they’ll always have a little piece of you,” Cosette finished softly, meeting Éponine’s eye. “It’s kind of romantic, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, Cosette,” Éponine replied, half pleased and half horrified that she was not breaking their gaze, “I guess it kinda is.”

They stared at each other like that for a few moments, Éponine trying to figure out how to quiet her her tell-tale heart, while Cosette sat, looking curiously at Éponine, as if she’d never quite seen her before until this very moment. The room, the air around them, felt very still, the way a hot summer’s day would.

Finally, Cosette’s questioning look faded from her face, a simple smiling replacing it. “You are just full of surprises, aren’t you, Éponine,” she said, shaking her head and letting out a half laugh. “I never know what to expect from you.”

Éponine tried to join in on the laughter, but something in her chest felt heavy.

Full of surprises, Éponine thought. _Yeah. Surprise! I like poetry. Surprise! I never wanted you and Marius to get together. Surprise! I’m secretly in love with you._

But, then again, Cosette had never said that Éponine was full of _good_ surprises.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Cosette's first date with Marius approaches, Cosette gets worried, Éponine gets short, and Jehan gets wise.

In between being angry, feeling guilty for _being_ angry, and being happy for Cosette, Éponine wondered just how much she let on about her displeasure about the whole situation she’d set up before her.

Half of her _wanted_ Cosette to notice the distance, or the way Éponine stopped looking in her eyes when they spoke, or the awkward silences that would happen in between conversations. The other half of her told her she was so fucking _stupid_ for this -- did she _want_ to blow her cover? And what would it accomplish, anyway? Cosette liked Marius, and Marius liked Cosette. Éponine’s feelings were inconsequential. Unimportant.

This led to some erratic behavior in which Éponine would try to say something meaningful, dropping a line in the hope that maybe, maybe, Cosette would pick up on it, then, minutes later, try to cover it up nonchalantly, this time praying that Cosette hadn’t picked up on anything at all. She wasn’t sure if Cosette noticed her odd behavior, and spent a good deal of time worrying over that, as well, which was a feeling she wasn’t completely used to.

“You know,” Éponine said Friday morning, looking through Cosette’s sketchbook for class, which Cosette had handed to her moments before. “You really are a lot more talented than you realize. If I were you, I’d have skipped college and become a starving artist. I mean,” she added, rolling over on her back, “why perfect what doesn’t need perfection?”

Cosette tossed her hair over her shoulder and took a break from folding laundry to give Éponine a pointed look. “Nothing’s perfect,” she replied simply, turning back to her clothes, “and I’m _far_ from it. Besides,” she added thoughtfully as she shook out one of her shirts, “if I’d skipped college, I never would've met you.”

Éponine’s heart skipped a beat and she grinned, and scanned over it, seeing the typical pictures Cosette had drawn of her, which had been difficult enough, seeing as Éponine could hardly sit still for more than five minutes. But still, she’d sat it out for twenty minutes so Cosette could get in the allotted time for class. There new sketches on Jehan smoking a cigarette next to the “no smoking within 25 feet of the building” sign, which made Éponine grin. She gave them credit -- the boots that they were wearing in the sketch did not look like ones _anyone_ would want to stand around in for twenty minutes.

“I like to think that we would’ve met anyway,” Éponine said carefully without trying to sound cautious, glancing up at Cosette, “like, one of those weird fate things.”

“You don’t seem like the type to believe in fate,” Cosette stated, her tone full of curiosity, which made Éponine worry that she’d let on too much, that “fate”, to Cosette, might mean “soul mates”.

Or maybe that’s what it meant to Éponine.

Or maybe both.

She wasn’t sure.

“Maybe I’m changing my mind,” Éponine replied, shrugging off Cosette’s statement. “Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen in uni? _Growth_?” she asked, waggling her eyebrows comically. “ _Change_?”

Cosette laughed and finished folding her last shirt, then turned to look triumphantly at Éponine, whose eyes were twinkling. “I suppose it could happen -- even to someone as stubborn as you.”

Rolling over again, Éponine eyes Cosette. “I am _not_ stubborn.”

“You refuse to call Enjolras anything other than ‘Apollo’ or ‘Enjy’ no matter _how_ many times he yells at you for it, and you still think Tracy from down the hall is trying to give you an exorcism.”

“Apollo told her about me and the Satanist joke. I _know_ it. She splashed holy water on me!”

“She accidentally spilled bottled water on you in the lounge.”

Éponine narrowed her eyes. “There was a ‘t’ on the bottle that looked like a cross.”

“Her first name _starts_ with a ‘t’, you dork,” Cosette replied, trying to contain her laughter while looking at Éponine’s indignant expression.

“I remain unconvinced.”

Cosette sighed and ran a hand through her hair while she watched Éponine continue looking through her sketches silently, Cosette's eyes on her.

Her rifling came to an abrupt stop when she came across a drawing of Marius sitting under a tree, sitting cross-legged, with a book in his lap. From the lighting and the shadows Cosette had drawn in, it looked like it was drawn around noon.

Feeling herself starting to flush, Éponine held up the drawing. “When did you draw this?” she’d asked, trying to sound innocently curious despite the familiar tightness in her stomach.

Cosette furrowed her eyebrows in thought, relaxing only when she responded to Éponine. “The day after he came around and asked me out, I think. That was Wednesday.”

Éponine had class at noon on Wednesdays.

She felt her stomach shrink, but refused to let her dejection show in front of Cosette.

“I thought you would’ve mentioned it,” Éponine told Cosette, who looked up from her newly-folded pile of clothes. But before Cosette could respond, Éponine tossed the book back onto Cosette’s bed without a second glance. “Whatever,” she said coolly, going to her drawer and pulling out a long pajama t-shirt, “it’s not as if you have to check in with me, anyway. The pictures are nice,” she added as she’d taken her towel off her closet door hook, and left their room without another word. She did, however, slam the door before her, which left a low ringing in Cosette’s ears in its wake.

And though Cosette didn’t know it, Éponine spent her entire shower crying for being such an goddamn _ass_ hole.

 

 *     *     *

Though Éponine did do her best to keep Cosette in the dark, her efforts were not quite good enough. Cosette, to her credit, was not completely clueless, and was very much aware of the hot and cold game Éponine was pretending not to play. She just didn’t know why Éponine was playing it, was all.

“She’s been acting very...peculiar, I guess?” Cosette said the next night as she sat behind Jehan on their bed, letting them brush her hair soothingly. “I don’t think ‘strange’ is the right word. I don’t know,” she sighed stressfully, closing her eyes as she felt the teeth of Jehan’s brush run through her hair, untangling any spare knots. The apartment smelled strongly like cigarette smoke, as Jehan had just put one out before starting on her hair, but she didn't mind. She's been living with Éponine long enough to take much notice of it. Plus, she had a lot on her mind, what twith her date with Marius was only a few days away. To settle the least important of her worries, she’d decided to go to Jehan for the final say on her outfit. 

And to talk about Éponine, of course. Though that was probably the biggest worry she had.

Jehan, though, who was much more in tune to the situation than they’d let on, kept their mouth shut as tight as they possibly could as Cosette confided in them. They’d hung out with the pair before, and couldn’t help but notice how Éponine looked at Cosette, or how her hugs with Cosette always lasted a little too long, or, how, when she told a joke, she looked to Cosette first to make sure she was laughing along.

And there was, of course, their conversation at the party. Jehan was accustomed to Éponine’s evasive answers and back-handed replies, and their suspicions were confirmed when they spotted Éponine watching Cosette and Marius from a distance, her eyes narrowed and sharp, her mouth twisted into a definite frown. Upon questioning her, they could feel the sarcasm radiating off Éponine, and not once were they fooled by the dryness in her tone. Cosette and Jehan might have been dealing with Éponine, after all, but Jehan was always a little more perceptive of other people’s feelings. Even Éponine, though she tried, couldn’t mask _every_ emotion she had.

But Jehan wouldn’t spill Éponine’s secret. It wasn’t theirs to tell.

So they let Cosette continue on with her worries, which, Jehan noted, were more about Éponine than they were with her date with Marius.

“It’s like I can feel her pulling closer, but then she pulls away, and every time it happens she gets a little closer to me, and then a little farther away,” Cosette said, scratching her elbow. “It’s strange.”

“She’s like the tide,” Jehan responded wisely, putting the brush down and getting up to sit face to face with their friend. “She goes in, then out. But tides change, you know,” they said softly, looking into Cosette’s worried face. “They always do.”

Cosette rolled her eyes. “She’s not the ocean, Jehan. She’s a person.”

“Cosette, you’re an _artist_ ,” Jehan said in exasperation. “You should know better than anyone else that people are are complicated as the water.”

“Water is water.”

“You can never step into the same river twice, you know.”

“Now you’re just babbling,” Cosette replied, torn between being amused and annoyed. Then she sighed heavily and crossed her arms. “I wish I knew what was up with her. I doubt she’d talk about it if I asked, though.” She looked over at Jehan with such a pathetic expression on her face that Jehan felt compelled to respond.

“It’s Marius.”

Jehan wasn’t exactly lying, to be fair.

Cosette, alarmed, ran a hand through her newly-brushed hair. She’d never considered this before, mostly because Éponine had, after all, been the one to set her and Marius up, even if she seemed a bit short about it, at times. “She’s mad about Marius? But...hmm,” Cosette stopped to think, and Jehan thought that maybe they’d said the wrong thing, revealed too much, and should interfere before Cosette made any hasty, though accurate, conclusions.

But Cosette continued, assuring Jehan that she did know what they knew. “I could see what you’re saying,” she said, twirling a hair around her finger in thought. “It’s usually when I talked about Marius that she gets most upset, or she’ll say something quick and cool and just leave. I wonder if I talk about him too much.”

Jehan didn’t say anything, but instead, allowed Cosette to think out loud, ready to correct her if she went along the entirely true path of how Éponine felt about Marius, and, most importantly, Cosette herself.

Cosette sighed. There was only one option she could come up with in her mind, as it happened to her a few times in school prior to going to university. She didn’t have many friends, but instead, a small group of them, though they weren’t terribly close. But things got tough when they all started dating -- even Cosette had had a short thing for a while with a girl named Amy -- as they all seemed to drift from each other, becoming invested in their own relationships.

But her friendship with those handful of girls wasn’t like hers and Éponine’s -- not by a long shot. She cared much more about Éponine than any silly girls she knew when she was sixteen.

“I won’t forget about her, if that’s what she thinks,” Cosette said quietly, looking down at her lap. “She’s my best friend. I’m not about to up and leave her because of some _guy_. If that’s what she thinks, anyway.”

Silently relieved, Jehan nodded. “Then just tell her that. Don’t mention you noticed her getting distant. It’ll just make her defensive. Tell her your friendship with her means too much to you to let her slip away.”

Cosette thought about this. It seemed reasonable enough. Not a full conversation, just something quick but meaningful. That’d get Éponine’s attention.

“How do you always have the answer to everything, Jehan?” Cosette asked, but Jehan smiled and laughed lightly, turning their head as the lock to the apartment door clicked open, and in walked in Jehan’s boyfriend, Bahorel.

Cosette liked Bahorel well enough, and knew Éponine liked her, too, though they’d only met a few times. He was muscular and strong, with light brown skin and dark black hair. Tonight he was sporting a black eye, and his shirt was slightly torn.

This wasn’t unusual for Bahorel, but Cosette still felt compelled to ask, “What happened to you? Are you okay?”

Bahorel simply grinned a toothy grin back. “I’m great, Cosette, but thanks for asking. Hey, babe,” he said as he walked over to Jehan and kissed them quickly on the cheek.

“Your knuckles are bruised, too,” Cosette noted as she allowed him to ruffle her neat hair. “What the hell happened?”

“Bahorel’s in fight club --”

“Hey, babe, the first rule of fight club is --”

“To not talk about fight club, yes,” Jehan said lazily. “I know, I know. It’s also the second rule.”

Cosette looked from Jehan to Bahorel, a confused expression written all over her pale face. “This school has a fight club?”

This was received with a loud, “Shhh!” from the pair, to which Cosette simply rolled her eyes.

“I heard you’re going out with Pontmercy on Tuesday,” Bahorel said, sitting next to Cosette on the couch. “Actually, I heard it about _fifteen times_ from Marius himself, so he’s either entirely delusional, or it’s true.”

“No, it’s true. I stopped by to show Jehan my outfit -- wanna see?”

She showed Bahorel the pictures on her phone, but he merely laughed at her, saying, “You could wear a garbage bag out with him and he still wouldn’t shut up about you. It’s fine, really. Mostly because it’s fun watching Enjolras get pissed off at Marius for interrupting his rants.”

Cosette laughed as she got up, prepared to head back to her dorm. “Thanks for that, Bahorel. I’ll keep it in mind,” she added earnestly, thrilled that Marius seemed to be just as excited as she was, though she doubted he was concerned about Éponine. Being worried about Éponine seemed to be her thing more than anyone else’s.

“Thanks again for the advice, and the outfit approval,” Cosette said when Jehan walked her out of the apartment. She gave them a quick hug, which they returned.

Jehan pulled back first, looking Cosette firmly in the eye as they did so. “Cosette,” they said, not sure if it was more for her own sake or Éponine’s, “just don’t let her slip away.”

Cosette took their hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze “I wouldn’t.”


	12. Chapter 12

Cosette kept an eye on  Éponine for the following few days. She watched and noted every time Éponine pulled closer to her, then drew back, as if rethinking everything she said and did up to that point, and then deciding to change direction. Every head nod, every quick glance, every downcast look was accounted for. And Cosette found that, though her date with Marius was fast approaching, Éponine was the number one concern on her mind.

Not that she _blamed_ Éponine. Not at all. A few times Cosette had placed herself in Éponine’s shoes...what would she, Cosette, feel like if Éponine started dating one of her friends? Or _anyone_ , really. She’d be a little scared, too. Probably even jealous, she decided. Anyone who got to spend that much time with Éponine would surely make Cosette envious.

Despite everything, though, Cosette was excited, and when Tuesday night came around, she was a bundle of nervous energy. So much so, in fact, that Éponine threw out Cosette’s afternoon coffee while she wasn’t looking, thinking that extra caffeine would make her jumpiness even worse. She imagined Cosette twitching on her date, which seemed like something Enjolras would do when taking an exam, or walking down the street, or really, anything that required his presence. She did not want Cosette to be like Enjolras.

“Did he every tell you where you’re going?” Éponine asked, sitting on the edge of Cosette’s bed and watching her put her makeup on from the reflection in the mirror. She was asking, of course, more for Cosette’s sake than her own; but, then again, she’d be lying if she said that she wasn’t a little bit curious about Cosette’s date.

Cosette twisted her eyeliner pencil and put the cap back over it. “He didn’t say,” she responded, examining her eyes in the mirror. “It’s supposed to be a surprise.”

“That sounds ominous,” Éponine said dryly.

“You’re so overdramatic.”

“Wrong. I have your best interests at heart.”

Éponine saw the reflection of Cosette rolling her eyes. “Whatever you say. So,” she continued lightly, adding mascara to her lashes, “what will you be doing while I’m out for the night?”

Éponine shrugged in response. Truthfully, she hadn’t thought to make any plans to distract her. That would’ve been a smart idea, but she was too busy drowning in her own self pity to have realized it any earlier than this very second.

“I’m think of taking up knitting,” said Éponine nonchalantly, “and then stabbing myself in the ribcage with the needles.”

“Éponine.”

“I’d rather do _that_ than study, if we’re gonna be honest with each other.”

Cosette put the mascara down and twisted to face Éponine. She was twirling a pen in between her fingers, though not really bringing all her attention to the action. It was something that was second nature to her, at this point.

Still fiddling with the pen, Éponine looked over at Cosette, who stared back. And that’s all they did. They looked plainly at each other in the way that friends do when the have silent conversations -- only, the pair weren’t conversing at all. They had nothing to say, out loud or through facial expressions.

Or, on second thought, maybe Éponine had nothing to say. Her face was unreadable, her normally expressive eyes lacking in any tell tale sign. She was a book written in invisible ink.

Cosette, on the other hand, did have quite a bit to say. About how much she loved and cared for her friend, her best friend, and how nothing would change from here on out. She knew, however, that this was not the place to say it. Not with Éponine looking like she did. Cosette’s words would simply fall on deaf ears. So she broke away first, sighing and turning back to her desk to finish her makeup, telling Éponine, “He said to dress warmly, if that’s any help.”

Unsurprisingly, it took Éponine a moment to respond. “Nope. No help at all.”

Cosette pursed her newly glossed lips and got up from the desk, putting her hands on her hips. “How do I look?”

Éponine laughed, trying not to let her eyes linger on Cosette’s body. Her hair was tied back in her usual braid, and her pants hugged her slender hips gently, their bottoms tucked into her boots neatly. Éponine examined Cosette without trying to be too obvious as she wondered what it would be like to take Cosette out herself. Where would she take her? What would they do together? She wasn’t too sure that it mattered; wherever Cosette was, she didn’t mind being. Except for maybe an active combat zone, or Enjolras’s room, but that was besides the point. And anyway, she was well aware of the fact that she couldn’t waste her life on “what if”s. Cosette was going out with Marius. Tonight. They were going out together, as a couple, and they would have fun and possibly go on more dates. Those were the facts.

It didn’t help that much for her to think that, in an parallel universe, her and Cosette would be going out now. Parallel universes are just that: parallel. They go in the same direction, but never quite manage to touch. That’s how they stay. Forever.

That’s how it was with Éponine and Cosette. Or, at least that’s what it felt like to Éponine.

But anyway, Cosette, as always, looked perfect.

Only problem was, Éponine noted, that Marius had told Cosette to dress warmly, and there were a couple of final touches she’d forgotten in her skittish state.

“You look fantastic, Cosette. You do. But...” Éponine trailed off as she opened Cosette’s closet and ruffled through it, pulling out a light blue scarf, “this makes you look warm,” she added. She tried to sound cool and unaffected, but her voice came out gravely, as if something had gotten stuck in her throat.

Because she knew that if she gave it a second thought she wouldn’t do it, Éponine leaned into Cosette, who watched as Éponine tied the scarf around her friend’s neck, her fingers delicately grazing over Cosette’s skin. The touch elicited a strange but familiar tingling sensation down Cosette’s spine, and she looked again into Éponine’s eyes, who seemed to be waiting for her, for they were wide with slight anticipation. 

This lingering gaze was less awkward than the last one, which meant it was also a lot more expressive. Éponine’s face was a mixture of something Cosette couldn’t put her finger on; her lips were parted ever so slightly, exposing the bottom of her teeth, and a piece of fly away hair was slightly out of place in front of Éponine’s eyes. Cosette had the urge to reach her hand out and brush it away, but she didn’t. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t.

Éponine spoke first, addressing the scarf more so than Cosette. “You should probably get gloves and a hat, too.”

“You’ll wait with me, right?” Cosette found herself asking desperately.

Éponine’s brow furrowed. “Wait for what?”

“I -- um,” Cosette tried, wondering why this was the time her tongue had decided to twist itself in her mouth. “For Marius. He’s meeting me outside.”

The corners of Éponine’s mouth turned up slightly, much to Cosette’s delight. “Yeah, of course. Whatever you want, Cosette.”

After finding a pair of gloves and a hat, they walked out together, and Cosette quickly found her fingers gently grazing the tips of Éponine’s, and soon, they were holding hands, just as they sometimes did when walking back from class or from dinner or just strolling around campus. But this time, their fingers were interlocked, as if the other girls’ hand was the only thing keeping their feet planted firmly on the ground.

And the terrible thing about it?

Neither girl knew how much it meant to the other.

 

  *     *     *



 

They waited silently for Marius, still holding hands.

Cosette’s primary thoughts were on Éponine, but in the very back of her mind, she saw Jehan, and they were telling her to suck it up and tell Éponine what it was she had to say: Éponine and her would still be friends. Always. No force in the universe would change that.

“Éponine,” Cosette said, not dropping her hand, but choosing instead to look at Éponine, whose glance was fixated on something in the distance. “Éponine?”

Her eyes drew away from the spot and landed on Cosette. “Yeah?” was all she asked, but Cosette was surprised by the vulnerability in her voice.

“Look...I just wanted to say, that...” Cosette paused and took a deep breath.

Éponine raised her eyebrows.

“Whatever happens after this, with me and Marius, it’s not going to change anything, Éponine. You’re still -- you’re still my best friend.”

Éponine did not speak. She allowed Cosette’s words to mull over in her head. Her gaze went from Cosette’s face down her arm, to their hands. “You’re still holding my hand,” was her response.

Cosette looked down as well. “I know. Marius can hold the other, that’s all.”

_Leave it to me_ , thought Éponine as she looked up at the sun, hoping it would evaporate her tears before they could spill, _to pick a girl who holds my hand as she talks to me about her probable boyfriend. Leave it to me._

Cosette chewed on her tongue as Éponine thought this. It didn’t seem the right thing to say, in hindsight. Jehan had been wrong. Nothing about what she had said made sense in her head. None of it seemed right. She was one hundred percent sure that those words were not the ones she’d wanted to come out of her mouth. The problem was, though, that other than those words, she could say nothing. She was speechless. She simply did not know what it was that she wanted to say.

She wasn’t sure if saying the wrong thing was better than saying nothing at all. But, then again, she had no idea what was right to begin with.

The girls did not get another chance to speak to each other alone, because Marius was rounding the corner, waving at the two of them, his grin more visible as he approached.

“Hey, Éponine," he greeted when he was close enough. "Hey, Cosette," he added, a little more shyly. "Are you ready?”

He didn't look half bad. He looked clean-shaven, his hair wasn't as messy, and he was wearing his one good shirt that wasn’t worn at the elbows.

“Y-yeah,” Cosette said, trying to tuck her hair behind her ear, but remembering, stupidly, that she’d put it back in a braid.

“It won’t be too far to get there, but we should probably leave now...am I bringing the both of you?” Marius asked, half laughing as he noticed Cosette and Éponine’s hands still clasped. He laughed further, still, when they both gaped at him identically, then looked down at their hands, nearly bumping foreheads.

“No -- no, of course not,” Cosette said when she recovered, shaking her head visibly. “We’re just -- showing a united front.”

“Yeah,” Éponine added in a low tone. “You hurt her, I kill you.”

Marius laughed, but Cosette cast Éponine a warning glance.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of her. My car’s in the lot, so, should we go?” Marius asked, looking eagerly at Cosette.

With one last, final glimpse at Éponine, Cosette squeezed her hand and eased her fingers out of Éponine’s; and Éponine let her as she watched and let her hand fall to her side.

“I’ll bring her back completely unscratched, Éponine,” Marius called over his shoulder as they walked away. “You don’t have to worry.”

Cosette squeezed her eyes shut tightly. She so desperately wanted to look back and see Éponine again, give her one, final look of comfort, but, truth be told, she wasn’t sure she could take who was staring back at her.

Or maybe  _what_   that was staring back at her.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this got out a little later, you guys! My computer fried and died last Sunday and was in repairs until Thursday, so I didn't have any of this with me to edit or post. In fact, I spent 80 dollars ensuring that, in the case of everything on my computer accidentally being deleted, everything on here would still be on a hard drive. That's how much I love you guys.  
> Also when I got my lap top back the word document for this page was open, and it wasn't when it died, so someone working for Apple was reading this fan fiction.  
> Enjoy.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cosette begins her first date extravaganza, and Éponine gets a surprise visitor.

As soon as the couple were out of earshot, Éponine crossed her arms, went back into her dorm building, and took the elevator back to her room. It was only after the doors had closed in front of her that she realized that she should have taken the stairs; she was alone in the small elevator, and she felt trapped, like an animal to a cage. It was, she thought, on God’s good humor if the doors ever opened again, allowing her to escape to the safety of her room.

But her dorm was not much better, either. There was something missing, and Éponine knew exactly what it was, though she didn’t say it out loud. She blared her music as hard as she could as she lay on her bed, but that, of course, did not work. Because minutes before, Cosette had been there, and Éponine had been there, too, and, without the both of them, something didn’t feel quite right. She could still smell Cosette’s perfume -- vanilla -- and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Cosette’s empty bed, which, in a few hours time, would be where Cosette went to rest once more.

Something would be different, though. Cosette would come back but story after story, with exquisite detail over the smallest things Marius had done -- the way his skin felt against her hand, the way he laughed, or the way he...well, whatever else it was that Marius did.

And it would be something Éponine would not be apart of. She’d hear of it after, but it wouldn’t be the same.

Even with Cosette out, Éponine could still feel her, and her goneness, and what it left behind. It was different than when they left for classes or when she went to hang out with Jehan or gone out to sketch.

Éponine placed a hand to her stomach and took a deep breath, holding it in for a few moments before exhaling, feeling her stomach fall underneath her palm. She stared up at the ceiling as she did this, wondering if it was okay to feel sorry for herself now without feeling guilty; if she could blamelessly feel as much sorrow as Cosette did joy.

It didn’t take very long for the room to start feeling like the elevator. Even with the window outside, Éponine still felt confined.

_My whole life, I’ve been boxed in_ , Éponine thought to herself, sitting up on he bed. _This was supposed to be a way_ out _of the box._

Without really thinking about what she was doing, she got up from her bed, grabbed her backpack, and headed out of the room, letting her legs lead the way to her destination.

She’d never done homework in the lounge before. She knew it’d be too distracting, with all the people hanging around and watching whatever was on the TV, but tonight she decided to risk it. Studying in her room was not an option. Being in her room wasn’t an option, studying or not.

The lounge wasn’t as full as it normally was, but Éponine didn’t notice, being too involved with wondering how she’d gotten to this point in her life where studying was something she did without too much complaint. She’s studied hard enough to get into Uni, of course, but that was different, and even then, she was still known to complain about all the work she was suffocating under.

She was so distracted, in fact, that she didn’t even notice who it was she was sharing a couch with.

It wasn’t until Enjolras, watching Éponine take out a textbook, a scowl decorating her face, cleared his throat to get her attention.

Her head snapped up and swiveled to the source of the noise. She sighed upon seeing him. “I’m wearing pants, not disturbing anyone, and I’m studying. You have _nothing_ to complain about.”

Enjolras raised his eyebrows. “I do not _complain_ , and I wasn’t going to. I was going to ask you if you’re alright.”

Éponine examined him closely. She wished they weren’t sharing the same couch. At least if they had their own seats, there would be armrests in between them. He looked genuine, though, his eyebrows still up, his mouth turned slightly downwards in concern. She felt as if he were the older brother she never wanted; older brothers were too protective, in her mind. She didn't need protecting. Especially -- _especially_ \-- not from Enjolras.

“I’m fine,” Éponine responded, shaking her head and opening her textbook. It wasn’t as if she could tell her RA about her crush on her roommate. Was that even aloud? Would he tell her to switch rooms? How would she explain that to Cosette?

Some things were left better off unsaid.

“I’m fine, Enjolras,” Éponine repeated, pushing a lock of hair out of her face.

But Enjolras was still looking at her curiously.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “You seem a bit...off.”

“Leave me alone, Enjolras.”

“See?” he insisted, gesturing towards her. “Your usual remarks are usually much more witty.”

Éponine snapped her book shut, glaring at Enjolras. Leaving her room was a terrible idea -- a worse idea than staying in it, anyway.

“I didn’t come here to be interrogated about my mood, Enjolras,” she said, stuffing her book into her backpack and getting up to leave. She was so angry that she called him by his full name. “Besides,” she added bitterly, “you probably have better things to do than play therapist to _me_.”

Before Enjolras could point out her testiness, she stormed out of the lounge, though not without stopping and giving him one last long look of loathing.

 

*    *     *

 

“So, are you going to tell me where we’re going, or do I have to ask?”

Marius smiled and shook his head. They’d walked to the perimeter of the campus, and it took a few minutes for Cosette to realize that they were headed toward the student parking lot. Now, they were walking along aisles of cars, Marius craning his head once in a while, obviously looking for his car. Cosette followed his gaze whenever he did, as if helping him look for a car she’d never seen before, but really she was just trying to distract herself, get her mind off Éponine, who was probably siting in her room -- their room, by herself, doing God knows what. She felt guilty, but at the same time, knew she shouldn’t. Éponine wouldn’t mind. Éponine wanted her to be happy, right?

“It’s a surprise, remember? You’ll know when we get there -- here it is,” Marius said, and Cosette followed him to a small, red car.

“Crap,” he muttered under his breath before he could unlock the doors. He was looking in through the back windows and shaking his head. “This isn’t my car,” he explained to a confused Cosette. “I don’t actually _own_ a car. It’s my roommates, Courfeyrac’s. He told me I could use if for the night, so we wouldn’t have to take the bus, but he _also_ told me he cleaned it out of his junk earlier this morning.”

Cosette peeked into the window to the backseat. Nothing looked too bad to her. It was messy, sure, with notebooks and papers strewn about, and a forgotten text book on the floor, but it wasn’t _dirty_ , exactly.

“It’s fine,” Cosette said, brushing past Marius to get to the passenger seat. “It’s probably a lot cleaner than the bus, anyway.” And anyway, she remembered in her head, she lived with Éponine, who, try as she might, would never be the neatest person on the planet.

Cosette was immediately sorry for thinking it, and turned her attention to who was in front of her. Marius looked nervous as he glanced over at her. Cosette wished he weren’t, but it was kind of cute, seeing the pink creep up his neck slowly. It was nice to think that she was worth getting anxious over.

In spite of herself, she grinned at his expression. “Are we going to go on our date?” she teased. “Or are we going to stand here and lament over the state of your roommate’s car?”

Marius let out a shy laugh, and Cosette giggled with her hand behind her mouth, playing with the hem of her shirt as he opened the car door for her, which she thought was kind of silly; but she’d be lying if she told herself that it wasn’t kind of cute.

 

*    *     *

 

Éponine hadn't been back in her room for fifteen minutes before she heard a series of knocks on her door, sounding a bit like someone was practicing a drum solo against the door with their fists.

Thinking the knocker might me be Enjolras, she contemplated not answering, or simply telling him to fuck off, but she decided otherwise and got up to answer it. She knew if he had something important to say, it’s best to get it over with sooner rather than later, so he didn’t, say, wind up waiting outside your classroom door during lecture, making wild hand motions to catch your attention until you pretended you had to pee and got up to see him.

“What the hell is with the --oh,” Éponine said in a dead tone, taking in Grantaire, bright-eyed and grinning at her, “it’s you.”

Grantaire clicked his tongue, with that annoying grin still plastered to his face. “Now Éponine,” he said in a serious tone, so serious that he almost sounded like Enjolras, “I know you’ve had your cornflakes pissed in this morning --”

“Life has continually pissed in my cornflakes since I was old enough to talk,” Éponine replied simply, turning on her heel and plopping down on her bed. “But continue,” she added, picking her head up in curiosity as Grantaire sat on the edge of Cosette’s bed.

“While Cosette is out on her date with he who must not be named --”

Éponine rolled her eyes, grabbing a pillow and flinging it at Grantaire. “You can say his _name_ , idiot.”

Grantaire avoided the launched pillow as he frowned. “I’m here to help you, Éponine,” he said in a reproachful voice. “You could be a little _nicer_.”

Éponine sat up, crossing her legs and leaning her elbows on her knees. “If you’re suggesting we go get drunk, I’m game.”

Grantaire rolled his eyes and put a hand to his heart dramatically. “How dare you assume all we do together is get drunk.”

“Grantaire,” Éponine replied with a chuckle, “I’m pretty sure that _is_ all we do.”

He rolled his eyes again and got off the bed. He held out his hand to Éponine, who looked blankly at his hand, then to him.

“I’m not going anywhere that requires me to wear real pants.”

“You can wear whatever is comfortable -- which, knowing you, is sweatpants -- do you have sneakers, too? Bring them,” he said when Éponine nodded the affirmative.

She walked over to her drawer and pulled out the first pair of sweatpants she saw. “What exactly are we doing?” she asked as she pulled down her pajama shorts.

Grantaire, who was eying the tattoo on Éponine’s thigh curiously, bit his lip. “I can’t say. It’s a surprise --”

“I hate surprises,” Éponine groaned, grabbing her sneakers out of the closet.

Grantaire laughed. “This one if good, I promise. You’ll have fun.”

“And if I don’t?”

Grantaire crossed his arms and considered his answer for a moment, watching Éponine pull her hair up into a ponytail. He felt for the girl, he really did. The only reason they met in the first place was because of their respective unrequited love, but now Éponine’s was actually going out with his friend, and they lived in such close proximity it would be nearly impossible for her to get her mind to take a break from all that misery and woe. Grantaire, of all people, would know. Enjolras didn’t even _like_ him and it still hurt. Maybe differently than how Éponine hurt, but love is painful, no matter which way you twist it.

So, as her friend, it was his job to help ease the pain.

“If you don’t,” Grantaire finally added sagely, “it’ll still be better than sitting here all alone for the whole night, thinking about her and Marius and waiting for her to come home.”

“Home?” Éponine asked, raising her pierced eyebrow.

Grantaire waved away her quip. “Home. Back. To the dorm. Whatever. But don’t deny it will be better.”

Éponine stared into her closet for a minute, not really looking at her clothes, but weighing her options: spend the day in anguish, or go, blindly, with Grantaire. As it stood, one of those options had the possibility of being halfway decent.

She bit her lip, her eyes wandering from the closet to Grantaire, who was standing, hands in his jacket pockets, waiting for her response.

Before she made her decision, she asked Grantaire one, final question:

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

Grantaire’s eyebrows went up at her inquisitive yet exasperated tone, but he smiled, as well.

“Because,” he said, shrugging, “you’re letting me be.”

Éponine took a moment to respond to this. When she did, she substituted words with simply getting up and holding out her arm, which Grantaire, with a triumphant smirk on his face, took.

Taking the lead, she pulled him out of the room, pausing only a moment to double back to pluck her jacket off of her bed.


	14. Chapter 14

“So, uh, before we get out there, uh -- I’ve never actually done this before.”

Cosette looked up from taking her boots off. “What?”

“Ice skate.”

Cosette blinked. Then she laughed, despite herself. “You took me to an ice skating rink, but don’t know _how_ to ice skate?”

Marius blushed scarlet, right up to his ears.

“Don’t worry,” she said encouragingly, tying her own skates tightly. “My dad and I used to go every year in the winter. We’ll go slow. Here,” she continued, getting down to tie Marius’s skates, “I’ll do it. I know how tight they should be.”

Marius grinned. “Thanks.”

Cosette looked up at him. Butterflies fluttered their wings in her stomach as she gave the skate one last knot. “You’re welcome.”

It was a bit awkward at first, as most dates are. Both were grinning foolishly, sneaking glances when they were sure the other person wasn’t looking; when they miscalculated and their eyes met, Cosette’s hand would shoot up to the ends of her hair and twirl a strand nervously around her finger. Marius would look at his skates, trying to hide his red cheeks.

Eventually, the shyness wore off, because Marius -- poor Marius, was a terrible skater. There was simply too much of him to be able to skate gracefully. He couldn’t find his center or his balance. His legs shook, he wobbled, and twice he fell right on his butt. The second time this happened, Cosette hid a giggle behind her hand, but held the other other out for him to take.

“Take it,” she said, feeling a bit more confident as he looked up at her, confused. “I’ll help you skate. Go on,” she insisted, and he wrapped his gloved hand around hers. He had to take the other one, as well, because he was too heavy for Cosette to lift him up with the tug of one hand.

They stood there, fingers interlaced, Cosette looking up at him, Marius looking down. As the other people spun around them, passing them by several times, they shared something private, something innocent; Cosette could count almost every freckle that adorned his cheeks, and Marius could feel the warmth of her hand through the glove, small and comforting in his own.

Cosette cleared her throat and squeezed his hands. “Just hold on tight, okay?”

He nodded, and Cosette took that as an okay to skate backwards, pulling him forward slowly.

“My dad used to do this with me all the time -- only, he’d pull, and I’d glide along -- don’t resist so much, Marius,” she added, surprised as her use of his name. She liked it. She liked how it sounded, and his shy smile when he heard her use it.

“I can barely skate forwards,” he offered. “I can’t imagine skating backwards.”

Cosette grinned. “It’s not too difficult. At least, once you get used to it,” she said, breaking away gently from his grip as skating gracefully away, circling the rink once, then twice, then gliding to the middle to make figure eights, hands behind her back. She smirked, knowing Marius was watching her in awe, but eventually made her way back to him.

“Show off,” Marius teased as Cosette narrowly avoided other skaters, still maintaining her balance and poise.

Cosette looked affronted. “ _Excuse_ me?” she asked in mock shock, barely containing a laugh.

“You heard me,” Marius replied. There was a challenge in his voice. “You could be in the Olympics,” he said, grinning -- though, he hadn’t stop grinning the whole date.

Cosette shrugged. She didn't want to act like it was a big deal, but impressing him kind of was. At least, to her. “Not really. Just years of knowing how to do it. Practice,” she added, taking Marius’s wrist and skating away, dragging him along with her.

“Practice,” Marius repeated behind her. “Does that mean we’re doing this again?”

Cosette spun around so fast she nearly knocked into his chest. “Sorry -- uh...yeah -- yeah!” she said, frazzled at the almost-collision. “I was hoping, anyway.”

Marius looked relieved. He looked Cosette over, trying to be sly about it, but failing. His brow furrowed, and he put his arm out to touch Cosette’s scarf. “Sorry,” he said as he fixed it, noticing Cosette freeze under his touch. “It’s -- um -- it was crooked. From the skating, is all.”

Cosette tried to relax, but couldn’t.

Éponine had fixed her scarf for her hours before. The very same thing Marius was doing at this very moment.

Except something was different, and Cosette realized what it was rather quickly. Instead of drawing his arm back, Marius instead draped it lightly around Cosette’s waist, and, right in front of all the other skaters passing them, he kissed her under the bright florescent lights of the rink.

And when they broke away, Cosette pulled him back in, because, to be honest, she rather enjoyed kissing him.

 

*    *     *

 

“Okay. In modern fencing, there are three weapons that you use in competition -- but for now we’re only gonna worry about the foil.”

“That’s this thing,” Éponine said, looking at the weapon in her hand.

“Yeah.”

“Is this the thing Lindsey Lohan did with herself in The Parent Trap?”

Grantaire sighed. “Yes. You get distracted easily, don’t you?”

“I just happen to have an extensive amount of movie knowledge,” Éponine replied, gripping on the handle of the foil tighter. She’s been surprised, no doubt, when Grantaire had lead her off the bus to here, of all places -- where he trained to fence. She was expecting a pub, or a club. Not this.

“It helps me get my mind off things, “Grantaire had said several minutes before when Éponine asked. He'd been examining the different foils for her to practice with. “It gives me something to focus on -- I mean, really focus. So everything else just slips away.”

It seemed fair enough to Éponine. Hell, if _she_ had had something like this when she was younger, she would’ve been a much happier kid. Grantaire was right -- even just trying to learn the rules and the different movements kept her mind off of Cosette and Marius and whatever it was they were doing at this very point in time.

“If this was a real sword, I could kill you with it.”

“It _is_ a real sword, ‘Ponine. And without the proper training, the only person you’d be killing is yourself.”

Éponine couldn’t help but laugh, looking at the foil in her hand. Fencing was the last thing she was expecting, but Grantaire had insisted when they got off the bus.

“It helps me,” he’d said. “It gets me to focus on one thing -- the opponent in front of me. And then I forget about everything else.”

“Probably better off,” she joked, gripping the handle more stiffly. Maybe she was having a hard time, but that didn’t mean Cosette and Marius weren’t in the back of her mind.

“Better off forgetting, not having a real sword, or accidentally slaying yourself?” Grantaire asked.

Éponine thought for a moment. “All three, probably.”

“Do you want my advice? Don’t grip the handle so tight -- no, I mean, besides your grip -- about Cosette and Marius?”

Éponine feigned thought this time. “Let’s see. Do I want love advice from a guy whose been in love with a guy who hates him for almost a year now? Yeah, I think I’m better off.”

“Watch your mouth,” Grantaire teased. “I’ve had years of practice. I could take you out here.”

“Maybe,” Éponine allowed. “But had you brought me to Fight Club, I would’ve kicked your ass so hard you’d wish you’d gotten killed by a sword.”

Grantaire shook his head, smiling, holding out a mask to Éponine. “You’ve got to wear one of these --”

“Ew, no. They could have lice. And how I’m I supposed to see out of this thing?”

Grantaire rolled his eyes. “They wouldn’t make it like this if you couldn’t see out of it -- there’s other stuff you have to wear, too, like a chest protecter --”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t want to ruin my great boobs.” She gestured to her shirt.

“Are you going to keep interrupting?”

Éponine bit her lip and raised an eyebrow. “I’m very tempted to call you Enjolras right now. You’re wearing the same expression he does -- like you’re going to impale yourself with the nearest sharp object. And anyway -- that advice?”

“I thought you didn’t want it.”

“Grantaire, look where I am. You had to drag me to a fencing center and put something pointy in my hand to snap me out of my own self pity. I’m in no position to be choosy over love advice. So tell.”

“Fine,” Grantaire said. “Put the sword down and we’ll talk. Look,” he said when Éponine released her weapon. “I’m not saying you spy on them, or compete with Marius, but you should at least know -- or really get to know -- the guy. He’s cool, Éponine. Maybe that’ll convince you not to rip his throat out -- or your own. Whichever. Maybe if you see Cosette happy, it’ll change things. For now, at least.”

Éponine considered this. “Yeah,” she said slowly, “but how am I supposed to do that?”

“There’s a party on Friday that I know Marius is going to ask Cosette to. Come.”

“I’m not invited,” was Éponine's excuse. She knew it was piss poor, but she couldn't think of a better one. And she knew that Grantaire knew that the real reason she didn't want to go was because she didn't want to do exactly what he was suggesting -- watch Cosette and Marius in couple-y action.

Grantaire gave Éponine a gentle shrove. “What did I just do? Tell you how to crash by coming in through the window? I’m inviting you. I’ll introduce you to everyone -- we won’t sit outside this time. You’ll make friends, at the very least,” he continued when she still didn’t look convinced. “Other friends, anyway.”

Chewing on her lip absentmindedly, Éponine nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Fine. I’ll go -- but,” she added as an afterthought, examining Grantaire closely, “you know Cosette thinks we’re becoming a thing, or something?”

At this, Grantaire began to laugh so hard he practically began to choke. Éponine thumped him on the back several times, and when he calmed down, he wiggled his eyebrows and draped an arm around Éponine. “Well, we would make a fantastic couple --”

“Shut up. And I’ll show. I promise,” she said, crossing her heart. “Besides,” she added ruefully, “I need some friends who I _won’t_ fall in love with.”

"That's the spirit, 'Ponine," Grantaire said softly, bumping her hip with his. "That's the spirit."


	15. Chapter 15

Night had fallen by the time Marius and Cosette pulled back into the school parking lot; a sprinkle of stars were just visible overhead, and Cosette thought she could hear and owl hooting somewhere in the distance.

“I’ll walk you back,” Marius said, and Cosette was glad. Part of it was that she didn’t want to walk back alone, and the other half was that she didn’t want her date to end. But it was wrapping up -- quite naturally, in fact. Not cut short or drawn out too long so that the pair felt bored.

Both were silent as they walked through the campus to Cosette’s dorm. She felt as if she should say something, but she couldn’t think of anything.

They reached her building, the lights from inside flooding out into the walkway, illuminating the both of them.

“Thank you,” Cosette said. “Thank you so much. I had a lot of fun.”

Marius smiled and put his hands in his pockets. “Thank you for coming. And thanks for not laughing at my -- poor -- ice skating skills.”

“I think ‘poor’ is a _bit_ of an understatement,” Cosette teased, “but it’s okay. We’ll keep going until you’re as good as I am.”

“That might be impossible.”

“You’re right. I’m pretty good.”

They both laughed. Cosette glanced inside. Éponine was probably waiting for her.

“I should go. I’ve got class tomorrow anyway.”

“So do I. So, I’ll, um -- I’ll call you?”

Cosette nodded. “Yes.”

“Good.”

They stared at each other for a few moments, unsure of whether a kiss was the proper and necessary way to end the night. Marius eventually decided for them. He leaned in slowly, and Cosette’s lips tingled as he gently placed his lips on hers. Even with him leaning own, Cosette had to stand on her toes to kiss him, and she was pretty tall to start with. She had several inches on Éponine, anyway.

They broke apart, Cosette biting her lip as she grinned at Marius.

“Okay,” she said as she started walking away. “I’m going now.”

“Okay.”

The automatic doors parted in front of her, and a sudden rush of ecstasy filled her, knowing that the date had gone, and it had gone well, and they were going to see each other again.

The doors slid closed behind her, creating a barrier between the two of them. She turned back around to see him standing there, his silhouette made visible by the dorm lights.

She gave a final wave.

“Goodnight!” she said, unsure if he could hear her. “Thank you!”

He quickly waved back before descending into the brisk October night. Cosette watched as he went, waiting until she could no longer make out him form in the darkness of the night.

 

 

  *     *     *



 

Cosette’s first thought after Marius had gone was that she wanted to see Éponine. She wanted to talk to her and tell her all about the night and how practically perfect it had gone, from Courfeyrac’s messy car to Marius’s less than excellent skating skills.

She fumbled with her card, but managed to burst open the door, excepting to see Éponine sitting on her bad, as always, maybe with ear phones in her ear, gently singing to music.

But the bed was empty. It was unmade, sure, but Éponine never made her bed; she thought it was rather pointless. Untidy, but empty, nonetheless.

Both beds were.

Éponine was not there.

Her towel was still hanging on the hook of her open closet door, so, unless she’d forgotten it, she wasn’t in the shower. Her phone was gone, as well. At least, it wasn’t anywhere visible. There wasn’t a note, but it was unlike Éponine to leave one, anyway.

Feeling deflated, Cosette sat on her own bed. The one person she wanted to talk to wasn’t even around to talk to. She contemplated calling Jehan, but it wasn’t the same. It was Éponine who she always sought out. It was Éponine she always confided in, in the end.

But Éponine was not there.

It was a strange feeling, not having her around. This bedroom was the place she was most likely to be spotted. She was almost always home when Cosette was. There was something missing -- not just in the room, but somewhere deep in Cosette’s chest. She could sense the loss.

 

  *     *     *



 

It was long after Cosette had put on her pajamas and climbed into bed that Éponine arrived back to their room. It was verging on eleven o’clock, and Cosette, reading Little Women, was beginning to wonder if she should give Éponine a call, to see where she was and when she was coming home -- or if she was coming home at all.

But Cosette didn’t want to think about that.

Cosette’s quiet thinking were interrupted by the door bursting open. Éponine walked through it, her smile wide as she laughed so hard that she was clutching her stomach, her hair falling forward as she slightly bent over. Her back was to Cosette, so she didn’t see her as she called down the hallway, “Yeah -- yeah you _idiot_. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It wasn’t until she shut the door and turned around that she saw Cosette. When she did, she nearly jumped out of her own skin.

“ _Jesus Christ_ \-- I thought you’d still be on your date,” Éponine said, her hands at her chest in shock.

Cosette shook her head. And awkward pause filled the air, where Cosette stared at Éponine, and Éponine scratched the back of her neck.

“How -- uh -- how long have you been here?”

Cosette shrugged and looked over at her alarm clock. “I got back about two hours ago.”

“Is it that late?” Éponine asked. “I didn’t even realize. Sorry,” she added as she strode over to her bed and ripped off her shirt. “I would’ve wait --”

“It’s fine,” Cosette lied. “I didn’t expect you to wait around for me --”

“I should’ve known you’d want to talk about it --”

“It’s fine, Éponine,” Cosette said again. Maybe if she said it enough times she’d believe it. “Your whole world doesn’t have to revolve around me.”

Éponine dropped her shirt on her bed and faced Cosette, hands on her hips, wearing only sweatpants and her purple bra. She contemplated Cosette’s words carefully. Maybe her whole life didn’t need to revolve around waiting for Cosette. Maybe it was better if she didn’t.

But it was easier said than done.

“Can I ask where you were, though?” Cosette asked as she watched Éponine get undressed.

“Out with Grantaire -- he took me to wherever it is he goes to practice his fencing or whatever it’s called -- I wasn’t that good, obviously. But, uh,” she added as she took off her bra from under her shirt, “I probably should’ve shot you a text telling you I was out, so you didn’t think I’d been, like, stolen or something.”

“Really, Éponine, it’s okay.”

Éponine narrowed her eyes. Then she shrugged. “Whatever you say. So,” she continued, sitting on her bed and crossing her legs, “how did the date go?”

Cosette, still feeling deflated, put her book down and shrugged. “It was fine. We went ice skating --”

“ _Ice skating_? Doesn’t really seem to be up Marius’s alley, does it?”

“It’s not,” Cosette said, grinning slightly at the memory. “He was awful. He kept falling, and eventually I had to take his hands and pull him around -- I used to go a lot with my dad. Ice skating, I mean.”

“What a picture,” Éponine said, laughing. “And you’ve mentioned it before. About your dad.”

“Right,” Cosette replied. There was so much that Éponine knew that Marius probably, most likely, didn’t. Like how Cosette couldn’t skip breakfast without getting sick, or that her favorite kind of apples were green, and if she _had_ to eat the red ones, then there had to be peanut butter on them. He didn’t know about the scar of her left knee that she got from falling off the swings when she was ten, or the other scar on her foot she’d gotten in high school when someone had dropped their huge binder on it.

There was so much Marius didn’t know that Éponine did. So much he had to learn.

And there was so much she had to learn about him.

“Are you okay?” Éponine asked, giving Cosette a curious look. “You’re awfully quiet.”

Cosette was busy counting all of the things she knew about Éponine in her head -- she cut all the tags off all of her clothing because they “itched” her, her eyebrow piercing had gotten infected when she first got it so she had to let it heal and get it re-done, her favorite smell was vanilla and, every once in a while, apple cinnamon. She’d lost count by the time Éponine interrupted with that question.

“Huh -- oh, sorry,” Cosette said when Éponine called her name again. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

Éponine was still watching her, chewing her lip and tapping her fingers on her leg as she did so. “Cosette, are you sure you’re okay? He didn’t -- _do_ anything, or try anything, did he? ‘Cause I’ll kill him if he did,” she added, thinking that this could be the only reason why Cosette was acting so strangely. She cracked her knuckles menacingly. She’d do it, if she had to.

“I -- what? No, no, of course not. I mean, he kissed me -- but I wanted him to, so. I’m fine, Éponine,” Cosette assured her. “Really. I just -- I really am tired, and I think I’m gonna go to bed. Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” Éponine answered, crawling beneath her sheets. She wasn’t surprised that they had kissed. All the same, though, she was still disheartened. “I’m tired, too, to be honest. Fencing is exhausting work.”

Cosette managed to laugh as she climbed out of bed to shut the lights off, then made her way back to her bed. She was so familiar with the routine by now that she could make out her bed in the dark, but this time she misjudged and caught her elbow on the dresser.

“ _Ouch_!” she yelped as white hot pain flew up her arm and landed, throbbing, on her funny bone.

“That sounded like it hurt.”

“Ow -- it did. Don’t worry, though,” Cosette replied as she massaged her arm and lay back down on her bed.

They both grew quiet, though Cosette was up for quite a while. Partly because of the pain in her elbow, but mostly because of something else she couldn’t put her finger on. But it was something. Something important. Something that bothered her enough to keep her from falling asleep.

It was Cosette’s turn to jump when Éponine’s voice came out from the other side of the room. Cosette had been sure that Éponine had dozed off minutes before. She should have known better, though. Éponine wasn’t a quiet sleeper.

“No offense, Cosette,” Éponine said in a low voice that told Cosette that Éponine assumed she was fast asleep, “but I thought that, for your first date with Marius, you would have come back with a story a lot more enthusiastic than, ‘It was fine.’”

Cosette didn’t say anything. She shut her eyes tight as a tiny voice from the back of her head whispered to her, _Éponine’s right, Cosette. She’s absolutely right._


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone's birthday is coming up, and Grantaire becomes a super sleuth and a mastermind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long to update! I went back to college which is, you know, a time sucker. So the updates might be less and less frequent from now on, but I promise I haven't forgotten about you guys!!

October bowed to November, bringing with it the brisk autumn weather, short days, long nights, and, of course, the continuation of Cosette and Marius’s relationship.

To say that Éponine had gotten use to it would be a flat out lie, though she couldn’t help but notice that, more often than not, Cosette would ask her to third wheel, or come and bring Grantaire along.

“I’m not double dating with you,” Éponine had finally said after Cosette had asked her the third time. “One, because double dates dare weird; two, I’m not actually dating Grantaire; and three, midterms are coming up, and I have to start studying. I can’t afford to fail.”

Cosette frowned and bit on the eraser of her pencil. She knew she’d been insistent on the matter -- it was just -- she missed Éponine. It was strange, not hanging out with her all the time; seeing movies with Marius when she could be watching scary movies with Éponine in the dorm, screaming at the characters as if they listened, or kissing Marius goodnight when she knew Éponine was probably hanging out with Grantaire.

It was...well, she wasn’t used to it, and it’d been a few weeks, and she still hadn’t gotten used to it.

“You’re avoiding her,” Grantaire accused when he decided to swing by her dorm early during the first full week of November.

“Am not,” Éponine responded, barely looking up from her laptop,  her face contorted in concentration. “If Enjolras started going out with, I don’t know, Combeferre, or someone, would you want to third wheel with them?”

“You can’t pull the Enjolras card. That’s not fair.”

“ _Life_ isn't fair, sweet cheeks,” Éponine replied in a bored tone, still typing away on her laptop. She picked up a pencil and started chewing the wood hard enough to leave teeth marks.

Grantaire watched her. “Okay, woodchuck, would you put the pencil down and stop working on your paper? My blood pressure is rising just looking at you.”

Éponine took a moment to glare at Grantaire, pencil still in between her teeth.

“It’s not a paper,” she replied when she took the pencil out and twiddled it between her fingers. “I finished all my homework yesterday.”

“I’m impressed -- what is it, then?”

Éponine cracked her knuckles and sighed. “Forms. For my scholarship. I have to fill them out to make sure I’m still qualified to get it for next year. Otherwise, I’m beyond screwed.”

Grantaire pursed his lips. “So soon?”

“Well, they have to be done by...January, I think. So I thought I’d do it now while I had free time. Otherwise I’d forget, or something.”

“I didn’t know you were here on scholarship.”

Rolling her eyes, Éponine responded, “How else do you think I was able to pay for this? My parents certainly weren’t going to chip in. It was full ride or nothing --”

“Jesus, you must be smart.”

“Smarter than I look -- at least, when I want to be,” Éponine added, shaking her head. “You think the girl who got a full ride to uni would be smart enough to fall in love with her best friend --”

“That has nothing to do with your brain. If your brain had any say in who we choose to love, our lives would be a lot easier,” Grantaire told her, moving to sit from Éponine’s desk chair to the edge of her bed. “Our brain only decides how we act on it.”

“Okay, _Plato_ ,” Éponine scoffed. The springs on the mattress squeaked as she uncrossed her legs and got off the bed. “I have to pee.”

“Thanks for sharing.”

“I’ll be right back, dumbass,” Éponine replied, reaching out to ruffle his curls as she went. 

Grantaire mused for a minute or so, twiddling his thumbs and examining Éponine’s side of the room, and the pictures of her brother and sister. More photos had been added to the wall as the semester passed; mostly they were ones Grantaire had taken of her and Cosette, and sometimes Jehan completed the trio. There were a few of Grantaire himself, as well. Marius was even up there, his arm wrapped around Éponine’s shoulders innocently, her eyes looking up at the ceiling pleadingly. She’d been caught mid eye-roll.

Once he’d entertained himself with the pictures, however, Grantaire grew bored, and soon found himself on Éponine’s laptop, reading the forms Éponine had been filling out moments before. He glossed over her name, her school ID number, but, curious, stopped at something that had caught his eye.

“‘Date of birth’,” he read, “‘ November 10'.”

Éponine’s birthday was that upcoming Saturday.

And she hadn’t even dropped a hint about it. But there it was, typed by Éponine’s own hand: November 10th, almost 19 years prior.

Grantaire stared at the screen in disbelief for a few minutes, nearly throwing the computer when Éponine walked back in.

She gave him a quizzical look, “What, did I scare you? The look on your face,” she added when he didn’t respond. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Getting his wits about him, Grantaire shook his head. “Nope, but I just realized -- I’ve gotta go. I promised Bahorel I’d meet up with him before we went to boxing class.”

Éponine sighed heavily. “Fine, go, go. Leave me here alone.”

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

“I’m not. And Cosette will be back from class in, like, fifteen minutes or so.”

Grantaire’s ears perked up. “Really?” he asked, an idea sparking in his head.

“Amazing, I know. People coming back from classes. Alive. Go ahead, before you’re late,” Éponine said, plopping back down onto her comforter. “Tell Bahorel I said, ‘Hi.’”

Grantaire nodded a goodbye, hoping his thoughts weren’t written all over his face. “Yeah, yeah. I will. See you later.”

 

*     *     *

 

“Cosette!”

Upon hearing her name, Cosette turned on her heel to see the source of the voice who was calling her.

She was bundled up in a warm jacket, scarf, and mittens. Despite the biting cold, she’d decided to take the long way to the dorms, walking all the way across campus from her Women in Art class, taking advantage of the sight the campus gave her of the sunset. She’d been admiring the different pinks up in the sky, thinking about how the sky always seemed to blend together, no matter what the different palette of colors, when she’d heard her name.

It was Grantaire.

Cosette smiled and ran a hand through her hair as she saw him approach. He was squinting from the sunset, but was grinning.

“Hey R,” she said when he was close enough. “What’s up?”

Grantaire shrugged. He was out of breath, and it took a minute for him to find his voice. “Not much. Are you going back to your dorm? I’ll walk with you,” Grantaire said when Cosette nodded, and they started off for Cosette’s dorm, where Grantaire had been moments before.

“How’s Marius?” he asked innocently, but she rolled her eyes all the same.

“You talk to him every day.”

“Yeah, but I’ll tell him everything you -- do you want me to carry your books?”

Cosette beamed at Grantaire, shifting her backpack from one shoulder to the other. She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ve got it.”

“If you’re sure,” Grantaire said, looking at Cosette’s hunched shoulders with concern. Then he remembered what, exactly, he had sought Cosette out for, and it had nothing to do with the weight of Cosette’s book bag.

“How’s Éponine?” Grantaire questioned, looking carefully at Cosette’s face, pleased when it lit up...but then it darkened.

“She’s...good, I think. I don’t know, really. She’s Éponine, you know? And I haven’t been hanging out as much with her since I’ve been...”

“Dating Marius.”

Cosette bit her lip and nodded. “Yeah.” She examined Grantaire closely, inspecting him. “Why do you ask?” 

Grantaire smirked and bounced on his toes. “No particular reason.”

Cosette rolled her eyes, reminding Grantaire a bit of the devil they were speaking of. “Come on, Grantaire. What did she tell you?”

“Now, now, Cosette,” Grantaire tsked, wrapping his arms gently around his friend’s shoulders. “We shouldn’t talk about our dear friend while she isn’t here to defend herself. Though, actually, what I have to tell you does have to do with her.”

Cosette raised her eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“Her birthday.”

Cosette stopped short, forcing Grantaire to stop along with her, his arm still perched on her sweater-clad shoulders. “Her birthday?”

“It’s Saturday.”

Cosette gaped at Grantaire. Éponine hadn’t even mentioned anything...not even that her birthday was in November. Cosette hadn’t exactly asked. She assumed when the calendar hit the first day of her birthday month, Éponine would say something. But it was the first full week into November, and Éponine hadn’t brought it up.

“Did she tell you that?” Cosette asked, wondering why Éponine would tell _Grantaire_ and not her. Grantaire was her friend, of course, but...so was Cosette. She felt a bit slighted. Almost jealous. Jealous that Éponine would confide these things to Grantaire and not _her_.

What else did Grantaire know about Éponine that she herself didn’t?

“Nope,” Grantaire said. He was reading the look of astonishment (or was it hurt?) on Cosette’s slightly freckled face. “I was..investigating...and, anyway, I saw her birthday. Definitely this Saturday.”

“She never mentioned it to me!” Cosette said, horrified. “Her birthday would’ve passed and I would’ve missed it! I feel like a bad friend.”

Grantaire, relishing in Cosette’s panic over a single birthday, wrapped his arms around Cosette. She hugged him back, too, appreciating the comfort that he was offering up.

“We _all_ would’ve missed it,” Grantaire said solemnly. “So I just thought I’d let you know --”

“We have to do something,” Cosette replied seriously, breaking the hug and looking in the eye.

Grantaire smiled encouragingly. This was too great. “ _Great_ suggestion! What should we do?”

“A party? Get all our friends together -- we can make it a surprise! She won’t have to know --”

“Not sure ‘Ponine’s a big ‘surprise’ person --”

“Yeah,” Cosette countered eagerly, “but if we tell her, I guarantee you she won’t want to go. If she never mentioned her birthday, maybe it means she might want to celebrate it quietly.”

Grantaire barked out a laugh. “Oh, Cosette, doesn’t Éponine know that nothing about us is quiet?”

His laugh made Cosette grin, reassured. “She should know by now. You get the boys together. I’ll talk to Jehan about decorations and birthday cake.”

Ruffling her hair, Grantaire said, “You’re a good friend, Cosette. Éponine’s lucky to have you.”

“I’m lucky to have her -- even if we haven’t been talking as much,” Cosette added, looking up to the trees,which were now barely visible in the growing darkness. She knew that statement to be true. Éponine really _was_ funny and warm and, sometimes, just plain silly, like all the times she’d pump up the music and sing in a shrill voice so that Enjolras would get noise complaints and have to come knock on their door to yell at them (he never yelled at Cosette, though. Just Éponine, who always stared wide-eyed and mystified at the boy at the door in n attempt to spook him.), or just a week or so ago, when the girls on the floor decorated the hall for Halloween.

“We don’t celebrate Halloween here,” Cosette couldn’t help pointing out as Éponine had dragged her into the hallway to help hang up steamers. “It’s an American holiday.”

“We know,” Éponine had said, nodding at their hall mates, who were putting posters and pictures on the windows with tape and thumb tack. “Michelle’s from the US, though. She’s spending the year here, and someone overheard her say that Halloween is her favorite holiday, so...and why are you complaining?” she’d asked, laughing and bumping Cosette’s hip with hers. “It means another party for us to go to! With _free_ _candy_!”

Cosette hadn’t objected. It was the first time in a few weeks that Éponine looked genuinely happy, relishing in the prospect of decorating and buying bags of candy to snack on -- which, of course, they did together.

Feeling as if he’d done his good deed for the day, Grantaire nodded, silently thrilled at his brilliant plan. “I suppose you are. Now,” he added, looking around at the dark courtyard, “I just remembered that I _don’t_ have to see Enjolras right now -- so, I'll talk to you later, yeah? Cool. 'Bye!"

Silghtly confused at Grantaire's sudden realization, Cosette watched him walk off before marching back to her own dorm, where Éponine was doing homework and listening to music, blissfully unaware of the plans her friends had for her.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marius notices a change in Cosette as she prepares to throw Éponine the most fantastic birthday she's ever seen. Trigger warning for violence and mentions of domestic abuse.

“Jehan!” Cosette hissed into her phone later that evening while Éponine was showering. With Éponine out of the room for at least a half hour or so, Cosette didn’t need to whisper, but she was more into the “surprise” thing than she cared to admit. And that meant whispers.

“Speaking.”

“I’m aware! _I_ called _your_ cell phone.”

“Oh,” Jehan said, and she heard them shuffle some papers on their end of the line. “Hi. Sorry. I was just finishing up my midterm paper for tomorrow.” They sounded tired. A little strained, even.

“Are you okay?” Cosette asked, secretly hoping they were so she could get to the point of the conversation before Éponine trudged back into the room.

“Yeah, just tired. I worked on this paper all day,” Jehan admitted guiltily. “Probably not a smart idea -- but what’s up? You usually text instead of call.”

“It’s Éponine.”

She didn’t hear anything on the line for a moment.

“Oh?” Jehan asked curiously. “What _about_ Éponine?”

Cosette stared at the phone as if it where actually Jehan. Their voiced sounded suggestive, as if implying something or alluding to something. She shrugged it off, though, with a quick glance at the door.

“Nothing bad -- it’s her birthday on Saturday.”

“Really?” Jehan’s voice, while still sounding surprised, dropped a bit in tone. “Did she just mention this to you now?”

“No. Grantaire noticed it on a form or something, and he found me and told me...we’re having a party on Saturday for her. It’s a surprise, so keep it quiet...we have to do something for her,” Cosette explained quickly, her eyes on the door, waiting for it to burst open. “I have a feeling she normally doesn’t get a lot of attention on her birthday.”

“Got it,” Jehan said, their voice perking up at the idea of a party. “So what do you need me to do?”

“Make sure everyone knows. R said he’d tell, but just in case...also, we need decorations, and...a birthday cake! And candles...” Cosette took her eye off the door for a minute to make a list on a post-it note. “That’s it, I think. Wait, hold on,” she said to Jehan as her phone lit up.

She looked and saw a text from Marius. She rad it hastily, her eyes falling on the words “Éponine” and “birthday”. The rest was a message about their date Friday night, but that wasn’t important right now. Éponine was.

Putting her phone back to her ear, she overheard Jehan attempting to quiet a loud yawn.

“Marius just texted me saying Courf offered up his apartment --”

“--as if we weren’t expecting him to --”

“Will you bake the cake, Jehan?”

“Do you even have to ask?” Jehan said. “I’ve got all the baked goods and decorations covered, unless Courf and Marius want to do that?”

“I think Courf is going to be out Friday with Enjolras and Combeferre...some rally thing or something, I can’t remember. Maybe I’ll just ask Marius if we can postpone our date or shorten it to help hang up the decorations. It shouldn’t take too long, should it?”

“She’s going to be nineteen, Cosette, not five,” they added, laughing lightly into the speaker. “Don’t go overboard.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Do you think real flowers would be a nice added touch to the cake?”

“I honestly can’t tell if you’re being serious,” Cosette said flatly.

That was when the door banged open, and Éponine walked in with a loud, “I really _hate_ the _fuck_ ing bathrooms in this fucking school.”

“Sometimes,” Jehan said quietly, “I can’t tell myself, either. Hi, Éponine!”

Cosette watched as Éponine hung up her towel in her closet, completely naked, save for a black bra and underwear. Then she remembered the note in her hand, and hastily stuck it under her desk.

“Jehan says hi,” Cosette told her roommate. “They also says ‘bye’.”

She hung up in the middle of them protesting, feeling a twinge of guilt, but knowing Jehan wouldn’t take it offensively.

Éponine took three steps from her closet to her dresser, narrowly avoiding hitting her hip against the corner of her desk. Opening the top door unceremoniously, she began searching through it, mumbling under her breath.

“Did you forget to bring pajamas to shower?” Cosette asked, watching Éponine, feeling slightly envious of Éponine’s small waist and rounded hips, and the way her underwear fit perfectly over the curve of her ass, like she was a fucking model.

“No,” the dark hair girl grumbled. “Every time I bring them to shower, they get wet, because the other girls get water _every_ where. It’s gross. So I’m saving myself the stress from now on. Also, it’s kind of hot in here,” Éponine remarked, throwing a baggy t-shirt over her head. “It should be colder, right? Isn’t it November?”

“Yeah,” Cosette perked up, wondering if Éponine was going to mention it. “The second week.”

“Oh, right. Midterms are this week. Duh,” Éponine replied, falling back on her bed with a sigh.

That was all Éponine had to say about the month, and Cosette did not bother to bring it up again for the rest of the night.

 

*     *     *

 

“I was simply suggesting we cut the date short tomorrow, is all,” Cosette said to Marius as they walked from class back to Cosette’s dorm. “Just like, get something to eat really quick, or bring it back to your apartment, and we’ll decorate and get everything ready for Saturday. Jehan’s gonna bake, and we thought it’d be easier to just do it at your place than to, you know, have them bake and have to carry it over.”

Marius chewed his lip carefully in thought, but it was the look on Cosette’s face that sealed the decision for him. Despite the voice in the back of his head, he couldn’t say no to her. “I men, I made reservations for tomorrow, but if you want to cancel them, I can.”

Cosette’s face lit up, her curls bouncing as she stood on her toes to kiss Marius’s cheek. “Okay! Great. So I’ll meet you at your place at five, okay?”

Marius nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Cosette kissed him on the cheek again -- she couldn’t help it, as he’d just shaved for the first time in a week before class -- before hurrying off. She had a list of things she still had to do in preparation for Saturday, besides the decorations and the cake: she needed to pick up something for Grantaire so she could get Éponine her present, find the music, and, of course, figure out how, exactly, she was going to get Éponine to Marius’s apartment on Saturday.

In her haste, she forgot to say goodbye to Marius, who was left in the hallway to scratch his head, wondering what on earth had gotten into his girlfriend.

 

*     *     *

 

Jehan stared at their cookbook, preparing to set the timer on the kitchen. “You said Éponine likes chocolate, right?” they called to Cosette, who was sitting on the couch in the living room, bent over the coffee table as she worked. Marius was behind her, setting up streamers, his height giving him a distinct advantage over the other two.

Cosette looked up from her work, rubbing her neck as she did so. “Yeah, chocolate is fine.”

“Good,” Jehan replied from the kitchen. “Because it’s the only mix I had on short notice.”

“Ass long as you didn’t get pink frosting -- Marius, there’s confetti and stuff over there in the bag, but we’re passing that out tomorrow, so --”

Marius’s eyes wandered to the bag on the floor near the kitchen entrance. He sighed and rolled his shoulders. “That’ll make a mess, Cosette.”

Cosette didn’t look at him, though. She merely waved off his concern, adding, in her concentration, “I’ll clean it up tomorrow. You think I’d leave you hear to deal with all of this yourself?”

Marius sighed. “You could at least help.”

“I’m orchestrating this, aren’t I? Besides,” she added reasonably, gesturing to the table before her, “I’m working on this for Éponine. She’s been buzzing around our dorm all week, studying for midterms -- I haven’t had much time to work on it.”

“I thought you said Grantaire was keeping her busy.”

“That was just for tonight, and I’m here anyway, so --”

Marius sighed again and pinned the last streamer in his hands up. “I’m going to get something to eat. Want anything?”

Cosette waved him away again. “No, no. I’m fine. Thanks.”

 

*    *     *

 

Éponine stood over Bahorel, who was down, flat on his back, hi nose bloodied.

“Jesus Christ, Éponine. Give me a break.”

Breathing heavily, Éponine smirked and held out a bruised hand to help Bahorel up. He took it, now unsurprised by her strength as she lifted him up to his feet.

The crowd around them cheered and patted Éponine on the back as she passed, meeting Grantaire at the table he was sitting at. His left eye was bruised and he was rubbing his sore jaw gingerly -- both injuries had been handed out by Éponine. He couldn’t complain, though. When Cosette had asked him to distract her for the night, the best place he could think of taking her was to the infamous fight club he had mentioned to Éponine at the beginning of the year. It was the perfect location: even if Éponine wanted to get in touch with Cosette, she wouldn’t be able to, between the roaring crowd and the location of the club, which was under the local bar he and Bahorel frequented.

Grantaire had forgotten, of course, that bringing Éponine along technically meant that she had to fight, so he’d offered to be the one to go up against her. He thought he could go easy on her, but merciless Éponine had shown no sympathy, taking his moment of hesitation to knee him square in the balls, punching him in the face as he went down. he then grabbed her legs and pulled her down, and they rolled on the floor, but he was no match for Éponine, who eventually won without so much of a bruise on her skin.

In disbelief, Bahorel had gone up against Éponine next, but she, too, took him down. She ducked his punch and leapt for his free arm, twisting it around his back as she kicked him down. Keeping Grantaire’s moves in mind, she avoided Bahorel’s attempts to grab her legs, eventually breaking his nose with her foot. Now, as he followed Éponine to their table, bruises were beginning to flower under his eyes as he held a cloth to his bleeding nose.

“Where the hell did you learn to do that?” Grantaire asked as she sat down next to him, taking a large sip of his beer.

“I knew people back home,” Éponine said elusively, smirking at the boys’ respective injuries. It had been Montpanarsse, of course, who taught her how to fight like that. Between going against him and fighting with her father, she’d learned her fair share of physical fighting skills. She didn’t think she had a fight or flight instinct anymore -- she thought it’d long turned to just a fighting one.

But the boys didn’t need to know that.

“You shouldn’t have underestimated me,” she added sagely when she finished Grantaire’s beer. “It would’ve been a lot harder to take you guys if you hadn’t felt so sorry for me.”

“You don’ eben _look_ tha’ s’rong,” Bahorel added, still dabbing at his nose.

Éponine shrugged, but shot him a sympathetic smile. “Sorry about your nose. Sometimes I get too -- you know -- involved.”

Bahorel waved her apologies away. “Combeffere ca’ fix’ i’ ub -- don’ laugh!” he added indignantly as his two friends laughed.

“I’d apologize, but,” Éponine responded, taking a quick glance over to the next fight.

Bahorel glared, but the pair simply laughed again. As a peace offering, Éponine bought them both beers for their troubles (though Bahorel could hardly drink his without getting some blood in his mouth).

As the boys drank, the fighting and cheers continued, Éponine massaged her bruised knuckles gently, realizing that it’d be a bitch to type up her take home midterm tomorrow if the throbbing didn’t cease any time soon.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Operation Birthday Surprise looks like it will be a success.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone!  
> Apologies for the late update; classes have been crazy and I've been really busy with Pride and volunteering on my campus's women's center to have time to sit down and edit/finish the chapters I have done.  
> I've been reading all your comments on all my works, not just this one, even if I don't respond to them. Mostly it's because I'm not sure what to say!  
> Thank you all so much for your love and support and feedback! I couldn't ask for better readers.  
> Until next time!
> 
> P.S. If all goes as planned, Éponine and Cosette's Christmas might be published right around Christmas for us! Funny how things work out, right? :)

In a bout of excitement over the surprise party the next day, Cosette lost more than a few hours of sleep: she’d gone to bed early, woke up twice in the middle of the night and tossed and turned for a half an hour, imagining the look on Éponine’s face when she saw all of her friends gathered around the apartment to celebrate another year of Éponine’s life.

Her eyes fluttered open well before her alarm was programed to go off, and, not feeling tired at all, decided that she wasn’t going to go back to sleep. Instead, she quietly got out of bed, and, careful not to wake the sleeping birthday girl, tip toed out the door to go shower.

Hair still wet, she took a walk across campus to get breakfast and coffee, letting the bright November sun dry her hair, curling the ends just every so slightly. Twenty minutes later, she was back in the room, carrying two cups of coffee in a flimsy cardboard container, surprised to see Éponine up so early.

“‘Morning, sunshine,” Cosette said in a sing song voice as she handed Éponine her coffee, who received it wordlessly, eyes still blurry from sleep.

“It’s like, nine-thirty in the morning,” Éponine groaned. She stopped to take a long, deep sip of her scalding coffee, then continued. “What are you so enthusiastic about?”

Cosette shrugged and sat on her bed, crossing her legs and watching Éponine drink her coffee. Éponine noticed this, and wasn’t sure whether to be alarmed or worried or...what.

After a few moments of silence, Éponine finally spoke. “What are you doing, Cosette?”

“What am I doing?” Cosette asked innocently, oblivious to her odd behavior.

“That,” Éponine replied, gesturing to Cosette’s whole being.

“Sitting?”

“Staring. At me, specifically. I mean,” Éponine said with a laugh, “I know I’m hot, but I just woke up. It’s not like there’s anything to see here.”

Cosette tilted her chin up slightly. “Beauty doesn’t have hours, Éponine.”

“Maybe for you, it doesn’t,” Éponine mumbled a reply, shooting Cosette a tentative glance.

Cosette heard, though, and grinned. “Doesn’t for you either, hun.”

Éponine felt the blood rush to her cheeks, boiling under the surface in her veins, threatening to expose her. That didn’t stop her, though, from turning around and saying, “Did you get laid last night while I was out, or something?”

“You came in after me, remember?”

Éponine couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. “I’ll take that as a ‘no,’ then?”

“Do you really not remember?”

“I was pretty drunk last night. I think I’m still kind of drunk, to be honest,” Éponine added as she rummaged a shirt out of her drawer. “I’m going to shower. I’m hoping when I come back you’ll be somewhat normal. For you, at least.”

Cosette stuck her tongue out at Éponine’s back as she departed, attempting to amuse herself until Éponine returned.

When she did, she was in underwear and a tank top, throwing her shirt at Cosette as she closed the door.

 

*     *     *

“I’m not sure how our laundry got mixed up, but that’s yours,” Éponine said as she went back to her drawer and pulled out another shirt, checking, this time, to make sure it was one of hers, and not Cosette’s.

Cosette laughed as she shook out her blouse, folded it, and put in in her own dresser. “I’d like to see you in floral someday.”

Éponine snorted. “Over my dead fucking body -- ouch,” she said, massaging her knuckles. “Fuck. I really fucked them up.”

Cosette nodded, approaching Éponine and looking down at the bruises blossoming over her dark knuckles. “You wouldn’t let me look at them last night.”

“Like I said before,” Éponine said, holding out her hands for Cosette to inspect, “I was _very_ drunk.”

“I just like to remind you how difficult you are when you’re intoxicated,” Cosette said as she went back to her bed and picked up her schoolbag, looking inside it and cursing quietly. “Hey,” she said before Éponine could raise an eyebrow at the outburst, “Can you come to Marius’s with me later tonight? I forgot my sketch book at his apartment last night.”

Leaning over the desk to start her laptop, Éponine sighed and looked over at Cosette. “Yeah. Just let me start my midterm, then we can go.”

Cosette bit her lip. “We don’t have to go right away -- I think Marius is out with Courf for the day, anyway. Maybe we should go around five-ish? And why are you trying to type?” she added in, trying to sound as casual as possible. “I thought you said your knuckles hurt.”

Éponine shrugged and shifted her weight to her other leg. “Gotta get done, no?”

Cosette gave Éponine a quick glance. The shoulders of her t-shirt were damp from her hair, her face locked in concentrated as she opened the word document, not flinching once at the pain in her hands. Watching Éponine sit on her chair, her thick thighs sticking to the seat, that Éponine was probably _the_ worst birthday celebrator ever.

Which made it perfect for Cosette; she, after all, was the best.

 

 

  *     *     *



 

Hours later, as the sun began to set, Cosette and Éponine walked arm-in arm to Marius’s. Cosette was texting him along the way, letting him know that they were on their way, and how many minutes, approximately, it would take for the two of them to get to the apartment.

 

“You’re seeing him in less than six minutes, Cosette,” Éponine let out, exasperated by her friend’s insistent texting. “Keep it in your pants, will you?”

Cosette elbowed Éponine in the ribs as gently as she could. “I just want to keep him updated.”

“What? In case that dumb sunset blinds the both of us and we get lost?”

“The sunset is rather nice, I think,” Cosette responded coolly, choosing to ignore Éponine’s disbelieving laugh. “It’s not my fault all you ever do is complain.”

“I do not always complain -- Jesus Christ, can you just _put_ the goddamn phone away?”

Cosette raised her eyebrows, as if to say, “See?”

“That doesn’t count, Cosette, we’re literally three feet away from the entrance. There’s literally nothing that is going to get in our way of arriving completely unharmed. Come on,” she said, tugging on Cosette’s sleeve. “It’s fucking freezing.”

Cosette had to navigate herself a little bit to make sure she was in front of Éponine, but eventually, they were up the stairs and walking in the carpeted hallway, their shoes making loud thuds on the ground, no matter how softly they tried to walk.

“I’m surprised the people below them never complain,” Éponine said, her voice close to Cosette’s ear. “Some of us have to sound like a fucking stampede.”

Cosette, stomach bubbling with nerves, simply nodded, pressing her lips together firmly. She was afraid if she opened her mouth, the surprise would come spilling out, after all her hard work and effort.

She slipped the key to Marius’s apartment out of her pocket and inserted it into the lock. Marius had warned her beforehand that the knob got a bit stiff when it got colder out, so she fiddled with it a little rougher than she could have, to let the others know they were finally here. She prayed Éponine wouldn’t question the odd behavior, but Éponine was silent behind her, patiently waiting for once in her life. Probably by the grace of God.

Marius had neglected to mention the stuck door as well, so she had to force the damn thing opened, and she did, letting the darkness of the living room pour out in front of both of them. Cosette walked in, and Éponine followed, beyond baffled at the supposed absence of tenants. She opened her mouth to question what the fuck was going on.

As soon as Éponine’s voice rang out in the room, Cosette flipped the lights.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first multi-chapter fic so, there's that. I have most of it written by now, and I'll try to update every week. If I know ahead of time that I won't be able to get the next chapter up on time beforehand, I'll let you guys know at the end of the chapter (did that make sense?). Okay. Happy reading!


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